Airlock active again after movement question. Wait?

[Ithaeur]

Might be a n00b question - only my second brew sorry. Brewing a 5 gal Mosaic IPA extract - OG 1.070. Dry-hopped after two weeks (which was one week ago) 1.021 at time of adding hops. Not much action last week as far as air lock so I assumed fermentation finished or near finished.

Tonight, I gently moved bucket from basement to 1st floor in anticipation to bottle in two days. I wanted to give it time to settle. After two hours, the air lock was active albeit slow (one bubble every 25 seconds). I was keeping temperature since start- Basement was 65-66 the whole time and 1st floor now 70-72.

My question is whether you think yeast became active due to higher temps and movement? Should I still plan on bottling in two days? I tried searching forums and half the answers say stored C02 being released by movement so bottle - half the answers say fermentation re-active and wait until no signs of life.

As an aside, whats my real target here - proper FG or proper look/clarity before bottling?

 

[Mark Farrall]

You may have woken the yeast up, but the increase in temp will start to release CO2 in the solution. So it may not be a sign of more fermentation. I believe that should stop happening once the temperatures stabilise.

Your real target can be both the points you mention, but it should be at least a stable FG before bottling. The clarity thing is your own preference.

And just to make things more complex, I've noticed that dry hopping with Mosaic can kick off a little secondary fermentation. Depending on the season/batch/lunar cycle Mosaic can have some enzymes which will break down maltose and give the yeast some more fermentables. Though as it's been a week since dry hopping I suspect it's just the temperature increase.

 

[Sunfire96]

I'm also a newbie brewer, and had a similar problem. I decided to bottle and now I wish that I had waited and left the beer in the fermenter a couple more days.

https://www.brewersfriend.com/forum...gushed-and-foamed-when-opened-now-what.13250/

The beer turned out to be fine, and if I'd waited for the yeast/beer to settle before bottling, I wouldn't have mistakenly thought that I bottled early. Which led to trying to (incorrectly) determine if my bottles were overcarbed, which led to me putting them in the fridge about 10 days early, ruining any improvements that bottle conditioning would have made. So here's what I'm going to try to remember from now on: be patient. Unless you're trying to bottle to hit a certain deadline for the beer to be ready, just wait a day or two when in doubt. Wait for the beer/yeast to settle so you know it's ready to bottle, wait for the bottles to properly condition and carbonate before chilling them. Wait for your bottles to be chilled at least 24 hours before opening to settle the yeast and sediment (longer would probably be better). As long as the beer is transferred from the primary in under 6 weeks, waiting will result in clearer, hopefully tastier, beers. When sampling my first batch, the bottles left to condition for 3 weeks tasted much better than the bottles I chilled after only 2 weeks.

Good luck and let us know what happens!

 

[Nosybear]

When brewing, to a point, patience is almost always a virtue....

 

[J A]

Temp change is almost certainly responsible for renewed airlock activity. It doesn't even have to start fermenting again because raising the temp releases CO2 from suspension. Even if that weren't the case, raising the temp expands the volume of liquid and gas, forcing gas out of the sealed container through the airlock. Be aware that if you chill a bucket or carboy, the opposite takes place and you'll suck back through the airlock or blow-off tube into the fermenter.

 

[Blackmuse]

Your aside is the best question - Mark answered it well. I'll put my 2 cents in.

The ideal thing to do is take a gravity reading and then wait a couple days and take another to see if it has changed.... This will help you see if your FG has been reached.

1.070 to 1.021 sounds like 70% attenuation - were you using US-05? The average attentuation on that yeast strain is typically higher if I am not mistaken. (Anyone correct me if I am wrong here)

If you took another gravity reading today and it was still 1.021 then I'd say you are good to bottle. If your reading is lower than 1.021 BUT your attenuation is 80%+ then I'd assume you are also good to bottle (yeast strain depending).

Hope this helps.