A week into ferment and it's bubling like crazy...

[jimlin]

I brewed on MLK day, pitched my starter of 1056 that night. This morning (one full week later) the blowoff tube into a growler of sanitizer solution is still bubbling steadily, every 2 seconds. Need to take a gravity reading tonight.

Details: Tasty's APA all-grain brew (8 lb 2-row, 3 lb pilsen, plus some wheat, carapils, and crystal). OG was 1.059.

Using a plastic bucket fermenter. Started the ferment at 64° in the basement, using a fermwrap type thing and a Johnson controller. initial ferment was slow. basement ambient is in the mid 50s in the winter. Temp control set to 64, with one degree differential. So one it dropped below 63, it would kick on to bring to 64. Couple days at this temp (maybe 3), raised it to 65 for a couple, then 66. Yesterday (Monday, days 6 since the pitch) I moved it to a warmer part of the house and raised the temp to 68. It's bubbling steady as if it were day 2 or 3. Is it likely this is taking longer because I started it too cool?

At about day 4 I had to pull the airlock and go to a blow-off as the krausen must have reached the bottom of the airlock as it was filling/clogging up.

A bit concerned that some bug other than the 1056 is eating away at the sugars given how much activity there is 7 days into this. Assuming that if my gravity reading tonight is within proper range I might be ok, but if it's well below what the FG is supposed to be, I could be in trouble... correct?

[TastyMcD]

It seems you had a slow start of fermentation given it took 4 days to hit high Krausen. I’d typically expect that in 24-48 hours. You mentioned a starter and 64F is really low enough to slow things down too much so I could only guess at the cause of the intensity of your fermentation at this stage. Your symptoms do indicate an extended replication phase which would imply underpitching.

If your hydrometer reading indicates you’re 80% of the way to your terminal gravity, I’d continue raising the fermentation temperature a degree a day on up as high as 72F.

This recipe likes to go below 1.010. I would let taste be the determining factor as to the quality of the beer.

Tasty

[jimlin]

Thanks tasty
It came in at 1.018 tonight. Still plenty of krausen on the top. Like you said, I think I started it up at too low a temp. The starter was only 1200 ml, and the OG came in about 4 pts higher than calculated. Seems like the combination of factors contributed to the slow start. I will raise it a degree tonight and continue at one degree a day like you suggest.

Still want to dry hop it, so once it slows I will move it to the secondary onto the dry hops.

Thanks again for the feedback!

[mordantly]

yeast health is suspect here. my american barleywine had high krausen in under 3 hours and dropped 100pts in 4 days. you need more, healthier yeast. try dap and energizer as well. small amounts in this gravity range can make major difference.

[jimlin]

Seeing that I have raised the bucket's temp to 71° now (still bubbling steadily every 3 seconds), and will go one more degree tomorrow in hopes of getting it to finish soon (9 days in now), once it slows and I move it to the secondary for dry-hopping, do I need to keep the temp at 72°? Best to avoid it dropping temp during the dry hop phase correct? I will likely cold crash it after dry hopping.

I bottle condition, so I would cold crash, and then rack to the bottling bucket. Do I need to let it come back to room temp before bottling? Seem to recall differing opinions on this topic.. I would determine the amount of priming sugar to dilute based on the fermentation temp, but does it matter what temp the beer is when I bottle?

[brewinhard]

Your best bet is to let the beer warm up to room temps after cold crashing, then rack to your bottling bucket with priming sugar for bottling. JZ and Palmer in BCS state that their priming sugar nomograph is determined by the beer's temperature at time of bottling rather than fermentation temperatures. I have always followed this with good success. YMMV.

On a side note, you can also dry hop in primary after the krausen/yeast has mostly dropped out. This eliminates the need for racking to a secondary which could result in an infection and/or oxidation. I do this for my IPA's and Imperial IPA's with great ease and simplicity.

[jimlin]

I ended up getting it up to 72° for a a couple days and it finally slowed to a crawl. Just racked it to a glass carboy onto the dryhops. One ounce each of amarillo and chinook.

Ended up with an OG of 1.059 rather than the planned 1.055, so hopefully the bitterness will be enough. Calculated 36 IBU in Beer Alchemy. Bittered with Chinook, and then amarillo and simcoe flavor and aroma hops in the kettle.

36 IBU would have been fine at a 5.5% apa, but this is looking like it's going to be more like a 6.3-6.5%

Color is nice and light... something I couldn't have done with extract.