I have a stout that I racked to secondary over blueberries 10 days ago. Still have secondary fermentation (8-10 bubbles/minute) but I don't want the beer to "dry" out. Is it safe to bottle or should I wait for fermentation to slow more. If I did bottle would I need to add priming sugar or is the fermentation enough to carbonate the bottles?
The only way to stop the beer from "drying" out would be to stop the fermentation (kill yeast), and then keg and force carbonate. But if you're bottle conditioning, it would be a gamble how much more fermentation you'll have. Do you know what your current gravity is, and how that compares to the % attenuation of the yeast you used?
There is absolutely no way to know what level of carbonation will result if you bottle before the final gravity is reached. You run the risk of having low carbonated bottled beer and even worse too highly carbonated bottles (i.e., bottle bombs). If you intend to bottle this batch your only rational recourse is to wait until the final gravity is reached and then add priming sugar to your desired carbonation level. Cheers!
O.G. was 1.065 and was 1.022 when racked to secondary, used WL 001 California for yeast. Wanted to bottle as it makes it easier to give away but can keg if need be.
You can bottle when the yeast is done fermenting. If you wanted a sweeter (less dry) beer, you should have used something other than wl001.
Well, I suppose you could keg now if you are so inclined but as long as their is yeast present the beer will continue to ferment (dry out). Do you intend to kill the yeast now and then transfer to the keg? Cheers!
Thanks for the help guys. really wanted to bottle so could give away so I'm going to just ride out the fermentation and then do that. Also need to look into a different yeast for next time.
You might get away with bottling now without priming sugar. Based on what I read here, I bottle "too soon" but then i use 50-60% of the recommended priming sugar and my beers carbonate just fine.
I would ride it out for a few more weeks. A friend of mine racked his stout on cherries and bottled too soon (2-3 weeks) after. He used a small amount of priming sugar and still got bottle gushers a few weeks later. If you want to add priming sugar, just make damn sure that yeast has eaten all the fruit sugars first. If you don't add priming sugar and bottle now it's kind of a gamble on how much more the yeast still have to eat.. could be risky.
I made a peach mead with frozen peaches that I've had to remove pressure and recap once. They would have blown up but as long as you try a bottle every once and awhile you should know if it's going to blow up. It's been 3 years now the 2 bottles left should blow up any minute now
