I just received the small batch kit as a gift and immediately began brewing the Caribou Slobber. Everything went well through the whole boiling, syphoning, and yeast addition process. I let it sit for a night and when I checked on it in the morning, there had been enough bubbles through the airlock to make it overflow. After that, I cleaned and re-sanitized the airlock then replaced it and noticed a few bubbles immediately afterwards. Since then, I have not seen any bubbles coming through the airlock. Should I allow it to continue for the next week and a half or should I do something to it? It has been sitting in the carboy fermenting since Friday night (12/18).
Small batch like this with an overpitch (1/2 pack would easily be an overpitch) and it doesn’t surprise me that it would be done already. Plus, unless you are actively controlling temps they can easily rise above ideal fermentation temps causing the yeast to go into hyperdrive. But, bubbling isn’t an accurate way of confirming fermentation. Yeast starts fermenting long before airlock activity by reproducing, and long after bubbling by cleaning up byproducts of the fermentation. Let the beer sit so the yeast have time to do this.
The fermentation could be near completion. Take a SG reading after a full 10 days, then another three days later. I f the SG readings are the same fermenttion is complete. When your beer has cleared, the suspended yeast and hop debris has dropped out, you are ready to rack to the bottling bucket.
I would like to see some one make a small batch hydrometer…. Mine gets takes 10 oz to get a reading…… doing a couple on a small batch and there wouldn’t be much left! Sneezles61
This isn’t going to be too popular but if I was doing small batches I would probably wait 4 weeks and bottle without taking readings. You are essentially losing a beer per reading. It would be highly unlikely that fermentation wouldn’t be completed after 4 weeks.
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I just finished my first small batch Brewers Best Cranberry Dark Wit, I followed the instructions and let it ferment for 2 weeks (actually 15 days since I was out), then bottled and conditioned for 2 weeks and turned out great. I was really quite surprised how good it did turn out.
What did you ferment it in? I use a 2 gallon bucket so don’t have to worry about blowouts with the 1 gallon batches.
I agree don’t really want to waste 2-3 beers out of a 10-12 beer batch on testing.
I would just get rid of that SG sample test cylinder and use the shipping tube the hydrometer came in. I only need about 3 to 4 ounces of beer to get a SG reading. You do need to hold it in your hand to spin the hydrometer to make sure it doesn’t stick to the side of the tube.
You could find the conversion fer the refractor… It seemed so vage that I stopped using it… I would roll with loopie though. I usually know how close my ferment is, so using 4 weeks would put you real close the the horse shoe pin if not a ringer! Flars, mine came in a tube with the test jar and the hydrometer in it… Sneezles61
