Hey guys and gals, I cooked up a batch of The Number Eight on 12/22 and pitched with Wyeast 1762 and then another bag of 1762 two days later. I know its not the recommended way to pitch but its what I could do at the time. 24hrs after put in the bucket to was bubbling non-stop, enough to where you could smell it in my apartment! After two weeks it was still bubbling twice an hour and as of today 1/15 I just heard it push bubbles again, so I am assuming it is pushing about once to twice a day.
Do I still wait til its done totally done before racking over to secondary? I usually wait to take hydrometer readings when bubbling stops. My starting O.G. was 1078 so it was slightly lower than what was in instructions. Fermenter temp has been at 68-70 steady the whole time.
What’s the gravity? Off-gassing CO2 doesn’t mean fermentation is happening. You need to take SG readings to find out. Identical readings three days apart mean it’s finished.
These big beers can take a long time to ferment out. Just to give you an idea, I have a russian imperial stout (OG 1.125) pitched about two weeks ago, and It is bubbling every several seconds still. I was a little worried about my beer until I took a sample to smell and taste. There is zero krausen present.
So I suggest to take some hydrometer readings and taste the sample while you’re at it. The bubbling may be some left over residual CO2 finding it’s way out and it may actually be done, but the only way to know if it is done is to take some readings. If the hydrometer readings seem to be the same, go ahead and rack it.
Then there are others on here who would suggest to not even use a secondary fermenter.
I checked the gravity before I left earlier and its at 1.013, zero krausen on top and smelled great. I will take another reading tomorrow. This is my first high gravity beer so I was a little nervous.
