I've been asking rather a lot of question about my first brew recently, but that's beginners for you eh?
I have a Young's Harvest Yorkshire Bitter kit on the go made with DME rather than table sugar and S-04 rather than the kit yeast. I don't have an OG reading. It definately started fermentation with lots of airlock activity for the first 24hrs or so, then slowing. I took a hydrometer reading on day 8, it was about 1.020 which was higher than I was thinking it might be. There was still a bit of airlock activity though. By yesterday morning (day 10) there was no airlock activity. I took another hydro reading, it was 1.018. After putting the lid back on the FV airlock activity seemed to have restarted (very) slowly.
I decided to give it a gentle stir last night as I thought it might have stuck. This resulted in an increase in airlock activity for the rest of the evening (perhaps a burbling every 5 mins or so). By this morning it was much slower again, or stopped. Temperature overnight hadn't dropped below 19C with a probe on the outside of the FV. Due to other stuff going on my only bottling/kegging days available are tonight and Saturday. So, the questions
- does the increase in airlock activity after stirring definately indicate that the yeast restarted fermentation, or could it be due to CO2 coming out of solution due to the stirring
- I stirred it really quite gently, although I definately disturbed some of the yeast in the bottom. Might I have been too gentle for a decent rousing?
- I'll take another hydrometer reading tonight. If it's gone down a bit, fine I'll leave it in the primary until Saturday (day 14) and hope it's done. If there hasn't been any decrease in the gravity what are my options? Give it another gentle stir, or just leave it to Saturday and hope I don't end up with exploding bottles?
- The beer is really pretty clear, although there is definately a bit of suspended yeast. I assume there really should be enough yeast transfer to ensure conditioning even if I leave it to day 14, despite S-04s high flocculation.
As a final concern I noticed last night that it looks like there's something growin where the lid clips onto the FV, I hope nothing of that has fallen into the beer!
I have a Young's Harvest Yorkshire Bitter kit on the go made with DME rather than table sugar and S-04 rather than the kit yeast. I don't have an OG reading. It definately started fermentation with lots of airlock activity for the first 24hrs or so, then slowing. I took a hydrometer reading on day 8, it was about 1.020 which was higher than I was thinking it might be. There was still a bit of airlock activity though. By yesterday morning (day 10) there was no airlock activity. I took another hydro reading, it was 1.018. After putting the lid back on the FV airlock activity seemed to have restarted (very) slowly.
I decided to give it a gentle stir last night as I thought it might have stuck. This resulted in an increase in airlock activity for the rest of the evening (perhaps a burbling every 5 mins or so). By this morning it was much slower again, or stopped. Temperature overnight hadn't dropped below 19C with a probe on the outside of the FV. Due to other stuff going on my only bottling/kegging days available are tonight and Saturday. So, the questions
- does the increase in airlock activity after stirring definately indicate that the yeast restarted fermentation, or could it be due to CO2 coming out of solution due to the stirring
- I stirred it really quite gently, although I definately disturbed some of the yeast in the bottom. Might I have been too gentle for a decent rousing?
- I'll take another hydrometer reading tonight. If it's gone down a bit, fine I'll leave it in the primary until Saturday (day 14) and hope it's done. If there hasn't been any decrease in the gravity what are my options? Give it another gentle stir, or just leave it to Saturday and hope I don't end up with exploding bottles?
- The beer is really pretty clear, although there is definately a bit of suspended yeast. I assume there really should be enough yeast transfer to ensure conditioning even if I leave it to day 14, despite S-04s high flocculation.
As a final concern I noticed last night that it looks like there's something growin where the lid clips onto the FV, I hope nothing of that has fallen into the beer!
