Secondary Fermentation Gravity

[Annunciation_Dan]

Hey meisters!

I am a few brew days into the hobby and am short on wisdom. I brewed a Belgian style Tripel with dried ginger and coriander that had an OG of 1.091 when it went into primary. 2 packs of Belgian Ardennes Wyeast to start and 7.5 days later my gravity is about 1.040 and tasted amazing after stealing a bit from my thief.

how much more should I expect the gravity to drop (still nice and cloudy)? and what is a recommended amount of time before bottle aging?

Thanks!

 

[feinbera]

Keep taking gravity readings -- you'll know the yeast is done working when there's no drop between readings two or three days apart.

Also, what temperature are you brewing at? Now that you're most of the way done, you'll probably benefit from warming the beer up towards the upper end of the yeast's recommended range; this will encourage the yeast to keeping working on the last fermentable sugars instead of stalling out early, and since the beer is most of the way done, you don't have to worry about off flavors that can develop from fermenting on the warm side of the recommended range during the most active phase of fermentation.

Sorry, haven't done any Belgian styles, so, I don't have first-hand advice about how long to bulk age, but, in general, and especially for high-gravity non-hop-forward beers, the longer you stay in primary, the better. With the fresh, healthy yeast available to homebrewers these days, and without hundreds or thousands of gallons of beer pressing down the yeast cake like you'd find in a commercial brewery, autolysis won't become an issue until you hit the multiple month mark.

 

[Annunciation_Dan]

Thanks for the encouraging words Feinbera!

From the planning stage my home brew shop recommended a starter or just buying a second activator packet of yeast (I opted for the latter out of ignorance). Unlike most other beer varieties I end up with an absolute abundance of sucrose and have no idea how that affects things. What I did see was almost no action out of the airlock and the kreusen floating back into the wort.

I've had the temp right at 70 degrees which sits right in the middle of the recommended 65-76 range by Wyeast. I'll kick the apartment temperature up to 74 and we'll see if that takes me across the finish line.

The airlock has gotten back into action and there is a new small ring of bubbles on the surface of the beer. Either the CO2 is escaping since I moved stuff around or I jumped the gun a bit on switching over to secondary.

As for the aging, my shop said to bottle after no more than 3.5 weeks so the yeast does not get after itself and create off flavors. What are your thoughts (these guys are young so I am not sold on their word as undeniable truth)

 

[RM-MN]

Thanks for the encouraging words Feinbera!

From the planning stage my home brew shop recommended a starter or just buying a second activator packet of yeast (I opted for the latter out of ignorance). Unlike most other beer varieties I end up with an absolute abundance of sucrose and have no idea how that affects things. What I did see was almost no action out of the airlock and the kreusen floating back into the wort.

I've had the temp right at 70 degrees which sits right in the middle of the recommended 65-76 range by Wyeast. I'll kick the apartment temperature up to 74 and we'll see if that takes me across the finish line.

The airlock has gotten back into action and there is a new small ring of bubbles on the surface of the beer. Either the CO2 is escaping since I moved stuff around or I jumped the gun a bit on switching over to secondary.

As for the aging, my shop said to bottle after no more than 3.5 weeks so the yeast does not get after itself and create off flavors. What are your thoughts (these guys are young so I am not sold on their word as undeniable truth)

There are two kinds of off flavors that yeast can impart to your beer. The first is from fermenting too warm. When you mention that you have the temp at 70, if that is ambient and not controlled beer temp, your beer may be too warm since the activity of the yeast eating the sugars will add heat. These flavors would include banana and bubblegum as well as a "hot alcohol' flavor.

The other flavor and it's the one the shop guys are mentioning is from yeast dying and beginning to decompose. With the size of batches most homebrewers work with, that seldom happens for several months. Don't rush to move your beer into bottles. I fear bottle bombs (nearly certain if you bottle this after only 3.5 weeks with this high of an OG) much more than the very slight chance of autolysis (proper term for yeast decomposing).

 

[Rhumbline]

I would guess it will need to go below 1.020 but here are a lot of folks more versed in this than I.

I had one Saison that took six weeks in primary to go from 1.10 to 1.017 so I think the answer is to be patient and let the hydrometer tell you when it's time.

 

[Annunciation_Dan]

I would guess it will need to go below 1.020 but here are a lot of folks more versed in this than I.

I had one Saison that took six weeks in primary to go from 1.10 to 1.017 so I think the answer is to be patient and let the hydrometer tell you when it's time.

Wyeast gives the Belgian Ardennes strain attenuation of 75%, which would place my beer right in the 1.020 - 1.025 FG range at the end of a correct fermentation... or is that attenuation number just a educated guess and it really depends on the total amount of fermentable sugars left in the carboy?

 

[RM-MN]

That attenuation is an estimate. Your may be more or less than that and still be acceptable.

 

[Annunciation_Dan]

UPDATE:

After taking everybody's advice and suggestions to task (thank you!), the beer is back to fermenting well. I checked up on it this morning and I'm getting at least 10 bubbles through the airlock per minute (which is actually more than the first day after prematurely moving to secondary).

I suppose the agitation of the wort and other factors unknown to me have kicked it back into gear. Thanks guys!

 

[Culbetron]

It probably won't attenuate as well once you've transferred out of the primary.

Your recipe will greatly influence things as well. Lots of high gravity beers include quite a bit of simple sugars (table sugar or belgian candi sugar) to help the beers attenuate better and to dry them up so that they are not cloyingly sweet. Many people advocate adding the sugar a couple days after fermentation has started so as to let the yeast eat the harder to digest maltose first, and then give them the easy course, the sugar, when they are already tired.

Looking forward to hearing how it turns out.

 

[Calder]

Belgian yeast like high temperatures. I'd run that one up to 80 F near the end of fermentation with no worries. The high temp helps to finish it off.

It's a high gravity beer, don't rush it. Leave it at least 4 weeks before doing anything. Even 8 weeks would not be a problem.

Your FG will probably be more determined by the amount of simple sugar you added (corn sugar, sucrose, candi, honey, etc). This will help bring down the FG.

You really want it to end up dry. Somewhere around 1.010. Not much you can do about it, the yeast are in charge now. Just wanted to mention this because once it hits 1.020, it is not going to be necessarily done. At 1.020 it would be too sweet for me.

If you listed your ingredients, someone should be able to give you an estimate of where you might expect it to finish.

 

[Annunciation_Dan]

UPDATE:

The beer has been fermenting for a total of 3 weeks now (1 in primary and 2 in secondary because of my early move mistake), and it is slowing to a crawl on kicking bubbles out of the airlock.

I checked the gravity and it is sitting at 1.020 after having a starting gravity of 1.091 (current ABV estimates: 9.32% standard, 10.15% alternative). I'm gonna let it sit for another few days before taking another gravity reading to see if there is any fermentation strength left in that Belgian Ardennes yeast.

And in response to a previous post asking for ingredients, I started with:
-2 lbs. Candy sugar
-6 lbs. Briess pilsen liquid malt extract
-3 lbs. Briess CBW dry malt extract
-12 oz. Cane sugar (to account for malt lost in boil over)
-1 oz. Brewer's gold hops (9.9%)
-1 oz. Saaz hops (3.2%)
-1 oz. dried ginger root
-1 oz. Coriander seed
-2 packs Wyeast Belgian Ardennes yeast