Keith the Beer Guy
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Hi Brian,
welcome to the site.
The quick answer is that an air-lock can bubble for a long time after you rack.
My advice is to trust your hydrometer - not your airlock!
Malt has a whole bunch of sugars in it. Some of these sugars are easy to ferment, some are hard to ferment and some never get chewed up by the yeast. In the rush of primary fermentation the easy to chew sugars are chomped up by the yeasts. In the secondary the yeast settles down and does a couple of things, one of which is chewing up some of the harder to ferment sugars. If you have a big black beer with plenty of these hard to chew sugars the yeast will keep on eating them for months perhaps years after you bottle your beer. (Making for some very over-carbonated stouts)
I cant help myself, but I gotta add - I would skip the addition of the sugar when you rack. I'm a big believer in not doing stuff that doesn't need to be done. Instead, just rack your beer a little earlier. When the rush of the primary ferment starts to slow down, your krausen starts to fall back into the beer and the airlock bubbles a little bit less. This is a good time to rack.
Cheers,
Keith
welcome to the site.
WildaYeast said:My only concern is that I'm not sure I should bottle if I still have some fermentation activity. It seems like I should get a complete cessation or is this incorrect? If I have a really good seal, then I would be getting a much better indication of activity than you would with an airlock.
Cheers, Brian
[post="107965"][/post]
The quick answer is that an air-lock can bubble for a long time after you rack.
My advice is to trust your hydrometer - not your airlock!
Is "zero" fementation/yeast activity before bottling a misunderstanding? Do the yeast really stop or just slow way down?
Malt has a whole bunch of sugars in it. Some of these sugars are easy to ferment, some are hard to ferment and some never get chewed up by the yeast. In the rush of primary fermentation the easy to chew sugars are chomped up by the yeasts. In the secondary the yeast settles down and does a couple of things, one of which is chewing up some of the harder to ferment sugars. If you have a big black beer with plenty of these hard to chew sugars the yeast will keep on eating them for months perhaps years after you bottle your beer. (Making for some very over-carbonated stouts)
I cant help myself, but I gotta add - I would skip the addition of the sugar when you rack. I'm a big believer in not doing stuff that doesn't need to be done. Instead, just rack your beer a little earlier. When the rush of the primary ferment starts to slow down, your krausen starts to fall back into the beer and the airlock bubbles a little bit less. This is a good time to rack.
Cheers,
Keith