Two noob questions

Northern Brewer General
1

  1. Bubble question. So I brewed an IPA, extract, with a yeast starter. Fermentation started within five hours and was vigorous glad I used a blow off tube. I racked to secondary on day 13 and bubbles were still coming out of the airlock about once every 30 seconds. Now in secondary, beer is very clear however on day 18, I still get a bubble every 30 seconds. Is this abnormal? My past three brews I had very little to no bubbles coming out of secondary at this point.

  2. Probably silly question but I was wondering how often if ever people change the tubing on their equipment such as on their auto siphon. Is it good to change it out often or just continue to clean it? Thanks. Everyone have a great new year.

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.1 Did you take a gravity reading this is the only true way to know that your beer is done? Allot of the bubbling when moving to secondary is caused by Co2 coming out of solution.

.2 I have used the same tubing for along time on my auto syphon but i keep it very clean. I end up getting new tubing for my blow off tubes about every third or forth use because of stuff being stuck in them that I cant get out.

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  1. Completely normal. To be sure it is ready, take gravity readings a couple of days apart. It is does not change, the bubbles you are seeing is just C02 coming out of solution

  2. I soak my tubing in PBW after every use and sanitize before the next use and have yet to replace after nearly two years. I will probably replace it just because

4

I took a final gravity reading when racking into secondary but only one. I didn’t take multiple to make sure it was not going down anymore because I was scared of contamination. That being said the final gravity was a little under the projected final gravity so I thought it was fine. If it is still fermenting a little in secondary, I don’t know if that will harm anything?

5

Probably a good idea to take another reading to make sure, the projected final gravity listed is really just a guesstimate, a lot of factors at play with that. Based on what you say, it’s likely done and the next reading will be the same as the previous, but it’s a good idea to be sure.

6

I think it would be pretty unlikely in your case, but if fermentation was not quite done, and you bottled it, you could get bottle bombs

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Okay thanks, I keg my beer so probably not a problem. I plan on kegging approximally four weeks after I brewed so hopefully it won’t be an issue. Thanks for the help.

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[quote=“GoldenChild”].1 Did you take a gravity reading this is the only true way to know that your beer is done? Allot of the bubbling when moving to secondary is caused by Co2 coming out of solution.

.2 I have used the same tubing for along time on my auto syphon but i keep it very clean. I end up getting new tubing for my blow off tubes about every third or forth use because of stuff being stuck in them that I cant get out.[/quote]

I gunked up my blowoff tube real bad fermenting a Belgian triple. Twice. What I did was bent it in a U shape, stuck it in my old fermenting bucket, made sure I had close to equal lengths sticking out of the bucket, filled the blowoff tube with PBW. I let it sit for a day, washed it out and sanitized. Good as new. :smiley: