Week of fermentation

[Shoultzy]

It's been 7 days since I started fermenting. I'd like to check my gravity, it hasn't been bubbling and the freezer don't smell of CO2 anymore.
I have a very aggressive fermentation(Or at least that's what my buddy called it). So he thinks I should send it into secondary, but I was curious if I could just bottle?

And can I just stick my hydrometer in the fermenter? or should I take a sample.

 

[tomoncanterbury]

Take a sample (I use a sanitized turkey baster). If you get the same SG reading for several days in a row then you can bottle. I think most folks around here don't bother with a secondary ferment.

 

[JordanKnudson]

Take a sample, don't put the hydrometer straight in the fermentor.

Don't do a secondary. That's an outdated method that isn't really needed for all but a select few situations. Do your full fermentation in the primary and go to bottling when ready.

After just one week, your fermentation may be complete, but the beer will benefit from a bit more time in contact with the yeast to help clear unwanted fermentation byproducts. Be patient. This is the hardest lesson for most new brewers to learn.

 

[ike8228]

Take a sample (I use a sanitized turkey baster). If you get the same SG reading for several days in a row then you can bottle. I think most folks around here don't bother with a secondary ferment.

I have a follow up question to comment. When you take a sample from the fermenter, do you put it back when your done? Does opening and closing the fermenter to take samples several times mess with the oxygenating of the beer?

 

[tomoncanterbury]

I don't put it back I drink it. I suppose you could risk oxygenation but there is a layer of co2 on top of your beer that should protect it.

 

[Shoultzy]

I don't have a turkey baster. So I have no clue how to take a sample haha. Siphon it out?

 

[slym2none]

A simple tube can act as a "wine thief". Heck, even a couple drinking-straws worth of wort will work!

 

[VTX1300]

Your local grocery store will have a turkey baster for a couple of dollars. But wait another week either way. Give it some time to finish up. I never ferment less than two weeks. You and you beer Will thank you.

 

[Shoultzy]

Thanks, everyone I'm going to just wait.
And I'll pick up a turkey baster.

 

[oceanic_brew]

I don't put it back I drink it. I suppose you could risk oxygenation but there is a layer of co2 on top of your beer that should protect it.

That layer theory has been met with some speculation by some way more intelligent people than me on here. Apparently the gases mix when you open the fermenter regardless of their mass/weight. But initially yes you do have a protective amount of co2

But don't take my word for it

 

[RM-MN]

It's been 7 days since I started fermenting. I'd like to check my gravity, it hasn't been bubbling and the freezer don't smell of CO2 anymore.
I have a very aggressive fermentation(Or at least that's what my buddy called it). So he thinks I should send it into secondary, but I was curious if I could just bottle?

And can I just stick my hydrometer in the fermenter? or should I take a sample.

If your hydrometer samples taken a day or 2 apart match and are near the predicted FG, you could bottle the beer....but don't. Your beer currently has a lot of suspended material that would settle out in the bottles and you would have to leave nearly 1/2 inch of beer in the bottle when you pour to keep it out of your glass. Another week in the fermenter will settle a lot of that out, 2 more weeks will be even better but it will be hard to wait that long on your first batch.

Reading a hydrometer that is dropped into the ferementer is very difficult and you probably won't get an accurate reading. Then when you take your next reading to be sure fermentation is over you won't really know if the gravity dropped or not. Since at this point in time your beer will be doing nothing but improving, waiting a few days to get a turkey baster for taking a sample won't be a big deal. Never return the sample to the fermenter. It is a contamination risk and you don't want to lose your batch of beer for such a small amount of beer that a sample would be. Drink it! It won't taste like finished beer but will give you a hint of how it is turning out. With several batches behind you that sample taste will be able to tell you a lot about how the beer is doing.

I have only used a secondary for adding fruit to my beers. Unless you are adding more fermentables you really aren't doing a secondary, only a brite tank which doesn't really do much to get you clearer beer and gives you a chance to oxidate your beer or introduce an infection. If you already have a 5 gallon carboy, use it to make cider, wine or better yet, mead. Mead will tie up that carboy for a long time so you won't be tempted to use it for beer that doesn't need secondary.

 

[JordanKnudson]

And don't forget, sanitize the turkey baster before you stick it in your wort!

 

[SlitheryDee]

The way I do it is to give it the full two weeks, but about day 12 I take a gravity sample. Then on bottling day I take another sample to be sure before I commit to bottling. I've never had one not be done by two weeks, but it does happen.

 

[balrog]

You'll find with time, and doing repeats of the same recipes, that you'll get the hang of when things are done. Higher gravity beers will likely take longer, I've had English yeasts take longer to "finish" (SG just kept dropping sloooooooowly). Absolutely sanitize anything you stick in the beer, and when you take the lid off don't set it on the basement floor, etc.

 

[65C]

In my experience 7 days is nowhere near enough - regardless of measurements - you need 3+ weeks on the primary at least

You can't rush beer - but you can get more going - if you get another 3 or 4 primaries filled you'll have a good pipeline in 2 months time

3 or 4 weeks in primary and 1 to 2 weeks in the bottle and you'll almost always have something drinkable - 4+ weeks in bottle and it'll be good beer 9.5 out of 10 times

 

[patthebrewer]

And don't forget, sanitize the turkey baster before you stick it in your wort!

Why....you could be developing a new flavor that no one has tried before

 

[jtratcliff]

Apparently the gases mix when you open the fermenter regardless of their mass/weight. But initially yes you do have a protective amount of co2 t

Yup gases diffuse into each other, regardless of mass... Even without moving air currents to enhance the mixing:

https://youtu.be/_oLPBnhOCjM

Add in disturbances (removing bucket lid, inserting thief, replacing lid, etc) and you mix the gases much faster than diffusion alone... There isn't really a "protective blanket" that survives. The CO2 pretty much starts mixing with air as soon as you open the lid.

During active fermentation, you're generating new CO2... continually shifting the mixture to to be richer in CO2 and pushing out the existing headspace gases... So after a while, you should have a CO2 rich head space.

Once fermentation slows or stops completely, however, no more CO2 is being made, and you are depending on your airlock and the seal of your lid to limit (but not completely stop) air from diffusing back into the fermenter.

The time it takes to uniformly mix a cylinder of CO2 and air by diffusion is proportional to the square of the length of the cylinder... I've read that 1 cm cylinder takes about 2 seconds, a half meter cylinder about 2 hours...

If that rate is correct (I haven't verified this) 3 inches of head space would be *uniformily* mixed with air in less than 2 minutes simply by diffusion. Include the mixing by air currents due to handling and it's even faster.

Even if you don't give it the full 2 minutes to come to equilibrium, you would still get quite a bit of air/CO2 mixing by diffusion.

So I wouldn't trust the "CO2 blanket" idea.

 

[BigJoeBrew]

Any reason that putting the hydrometer in the fermentor (bucket) would be an issue if it is sanitized? I can understand not putting it in a carboy since you can't get it out.

Take a sample, don't put the hydrometer straight in the fermentor.

Don't do a secondary. That's an outdated method that isn't really needed for all but a select few situations. Do your full fermentation in the primary and go to bottling when ready.

After just one week, your fermentation may be complete, but the beer will benefit from a bit more time in contact with the yeast to help clear unwanted fermentation byproducts. Be patient. This is the hardest lesson for most new brewers to learn.

 

[SlitheryDee]

So I wouldn't trust the "CO2 blanket" idea.

I never actually imagined that I was keeping O2 out of my beer completely due to any "blanket" effect. All I knew is that I was following a methodology that had made good beer for other people regardless of oxygen exposure. I must say that I haven't really noticed any effects of oxygen exposure thus far.

I'd like to be set up so that I could keep a beer completely free from oxygen from pitching the yeast up to serving it and see what kind of difference that makes. I suppose that would involve fermenting in a keg with a spunding valve and pressure transferring over to a purged serving keg without ever checking the gravity. True LODO is interesting, but seem like going a bit too far considering that I don't have control over the oxygen exposure of all my ingredients before I get them, and the fact that the yeasts themselves will scavenge all the oxygen from the beer during fermentation anyway.

 

[RM-MN]

Any reason that putting the hydrometer in the fermentor (bucket) would be an issue if it is sanitized? I can understand not putting it in a carboy since you can't get it out.

Lots of us have trouble enough reading the hydrometer accurately with it in a sample tube. No way could I get an accurate reading looking down into my bucket fermenter.

 

[jtratcliff]

I never actually imagined that I was keeping O2 out of my beer completely due to any "blanket" effect. All I knew is that I was following a methodology that had made good beer for other people regardless of oxygen exposure. I must say that I haven't really noticed any effects of oxygen exposure thus far.

I'd like to be set up so that I could keep a beer completely free from oxygen from pitching the yeast up to serving it and see what kind of difference that makes. I suppose that would involve fermenting in a keg with a spunding valve and pressure transferring over to a purged serving keg without ever checking the gravity. True LODO is interesting, but seem like going a bit too far considering that I don't have control over the oxygen exposure of all my ingredients before I get them, and the fact that the yeasts themselves will scavenge all the oxygen from the beer during fermentation anyway.

I hear you... I do what I can to minimize disturbance of my CO2 headspace, but my process is so far from LODO it's not even funny... Plus I bottle, so racking into a bottling bucket gives me all kinds of oxygen exposure...

Fortunately I'm not a hop head, so I don't make many IPAs. I'm not into really big beers, so no long conditioning times or extended aging. I only do 6 gallon batches, so I can finish them off in a relatively short time before staling really starts to be evident...

I bought into the CO2 blanket at first without thinking about it, based on what more experienced brewers were saying (here on HBT and elsewhere). It was not until I saw someone mention that gases don't work that way that I said "D'Oh! Of course!"

That realization hasn't really changed how I handle my beer, I just no longer believe in the "blanket" providing any protection. So every once in a while, when I see the "blanket" meme, I try to counter it... For Science!

 

[JordanKnudson]

Any reason that putting the hydrometer in the fermentor (bucket) would be an issue if it is sanitized? I can understand not putting it in a carboy since you can't get it out.

As RM-MN has beaten me to the punch in saying, a test tube is just a little easier to get a good reading with. Beyond that, I don't like the notion of putting the hydrometer directly into the bucket because A) that's more opportunities to put your hands into the bucket, which as a totally paranoid sanitation freak I do not like; and B) probably more of a concern is that it represents more time with the lid of the fermentor open, meaning more escape of CO2/introduction of oxygen, and thus more likely risk of some oxidation.

 

[BigJoeBrew]

I can understand that it can be hard to read if the fermentor is on the floor, I just get on my knees to read it from the side. I only take this reading when airlock activity has ceased and when I open the lid there are no signs of krausen. I think it actually takes less time, since you just sanitize the hydrometer, open lid, put it in give a spin, read, and put lid back on. I would think the turkey baster (which I also have done that way) could harbor more potential for infection. You only have the hydrometer to clean in my case. Just think of the bucket as a big test tube! But to each their own, whatever works for you.