Strange Goings On In The Fermenter!

[bookworm1707]

So I have a tooheys larger kit, yeast is a s-23 or similar. Had it at around the 10 degree mark for a week and got a sg of about 1.25 a few days later after got a similar reading. Bought it inside temp around 16, got a reading around 1.20 left it at same 16ish temp and just this morning got a 1.3+

The beer smells great!

I check the tester and it reads 1.0 on tap water. when I get the reading I spin it and see where it rests. I do this a few times.

The airlock lets a bubble through about every 6 seconds. It has always bubbled around this rate.

It is now day 11.

Is something wrong? Or am I just impatient..... It is my first brew in about 10+ years.

 

[chrisso81]

If you're still dropping gravity points and have airlock activity (but don't mention that around here as someone may come around and strangle a kitten in front of you) then I guess you are just being impatient. It would seem the rise in temp has given all those yeasties a spring in their step. I can't tell you what your final sg should be, but don't bottle unless you like to clean up bottle bomb carnage, which is the inherant risk of bottling a brew before it has finished fermenting.

 

[Impy]

Since it's a lager it's going to take a lot longer for the yeast to ferment and finish cleaning up the beer. If i'm reading correctly you're saying that your gravity actually went up on the second day in the warmer environment?

It could just be a glitch in the reading due to temperatures or heaps of sediment. Try to get it down around the 12 degree mark if you can, but otherwise I'd just leave it for another couple of weeks.

The problem with taking readings so close together is that it's harder to tell the difference between subtle reading differences and real attenuation changes.

 

[bignath]

If you're still dropping gravity points

His concern seems to be that his gravity appears to be increasing not dropping....

In times of weirdness like this, i find it's always best to give it a few days more and see what happens. When you brought it inside, you may have stirred up some of the crap on the bottom of fermenter and that may have got inside you hydro sample, giving you a skewed reading. Test it again in the next couple of days and see what's going on then.

By the way, not trying to be pedantic, but when mentioning gravity points, put a "0" between the 1 and the next number. Decimal point not so critical for people to understand, but when you type a gravity reading of 1.2 or 1.3 - that's really, really, really high gravity - as in 1.200 as opposed to the 1.020 i'm assuming you mean.

And as has been mentioned in heaps of threads, don't worry about airlock activity at all. It's not an accurate indicator of fermentation progress. You can have fermentation without airlock activity, and you can have airlock activity when fermentation has finished.

RE: bringing it inside.
Sounds like you're trying to do a diacetyl rest. Not sure if that was the intention or if you wanted to speed up the process.
If you were doing a diacetyl, then i would continue to leave it for a day or two, and then drop back to cold temp to condition for a week or longer.

 

[chrisso81]

I am an idiot, please disregard my post.

 

[bookworm1707]

Great, thanks guys. I only mentioned the airlock as I wanted to give as much info as possible. I realise it is not the ultimate indicator.