Little help?
As I’ve written before, I’m trying this whole new approach to brewing to hopefully improve my beers. Ever since the move, I’ve been having less than stellar luck getting the quality and flavor that I want. So with excellent support from those close to me, I am attempting to go back to the basics and follow the instructions.
It may be that my beer has been suffering from me thinking I know the process fairly well and just brewing and fermenting the way I have always done with the methods that have, in the past, worked for me.
On to the issue.
I wrote last week how I brewed a particularly hoppy huge double IPA following the instructions that came with the kit. I didn’t even adjust the hopping schedule! The only thing I did different was to add WhirlFloc in the last fifteen minutes. The original gravity dinged in at 1.080 before temp correcting. (Since it was room temp when I took the reading and my hydrometer is calibrated to 68degF I wasn’t too worried about a couple 0.001’s.) I pitched an XL pack of American Ale yeast that puffed up quite nicely before adding it to the wort.
A week later, I took a gravity and it is riding just under 1.020 again, at 69degF. The airlock is still gurgling at a fairly good clip, every couple of seconds. My gut tells me to let it ride for a while longer until the airlock slows and fermentation eases up, but the instructions say to rack after a week.
My conundrum is this: Do I follow the instructions against my gut feelings?
Cheers.
Let it finish! Don’t transfer it until you think the fermentation is complete. A gravity reading of 1.020 is pretty good, but if it’s still working, let it be!!
Honestly, I wouldn’t even do a secondary. Of course, this is a subject of much debate. For what it’s worth, I would just wait for the airlock to stop, wait another few days, and then bottle it.
March 16th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
What is your target FG? With an OG like 1.080 you’re going to have a robust beer no matter how you cut it, now it’s a matter of how it tastes. That’s where the FG comes into play. For me, if the FG were something like 1.016 and I was at 1.020 with the primary still bubbling away, I would rack over. I know that I aways loose a little bit of gravity in the secondary and it should end out closer to the FG. As opposed to just riding out your gravity to where your at 1.010 and there is no turning back.
March 16th, 2008 at 10:14 pm
The other thing I need to add two ounces of whole hops to secondary as well.
If the gravity was even 1.019 I would have racked, it is more the activity thats throwing me.
March 17th, 2008 at 8:39 am
Rack it and don’t worry. Better to have plenty of activity to scrub that oxygen off the whole hops. Either way though it won’t affect it that much.
Cheers!
March 18th, 2008 at 11:39 pm
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March 19th, 2008 at 4:35 pm