Hello out there. I know that yeasts and fermentation times vary widely, but in my brief experience I have never seen one go so long. I brewed a west coast IPA on the 25th of June. I pitched some Lallemand English ale yeast, and there was activity within 24 hours (bubbles in airlock, smell, krausen visible). I had to go out of town on business on the 1st, so I dry hopped with 2 ounces of Cryo Pop on the 30th. I wanted to do this closer to the tail end of fermentation to avoid hop creep, which might have ruined my last hoppy beer. (Thanks again for the tip @VikeMan). By the time I had to leave, fermentation had not slowed much. I am still out of town, but when I spoke to my wife on the 3rd, she said it was still bubbling in the airlock. I will take readings when I get back, but that won't be until late night on the 8th. Is this yeast notoriously slow? Could the dry hopping have kicked off a kind of secondary fermentation? Thanks.
Sounds like it's been 10 days. While that's on the longish side, it's also not anything to worry about IMO. Also, your wife noticed bubbling in the airlock, but how much? CO2 will off-gas from the beer into the headspace, seeking equilibrium. At the same time, the headspace CO2 is escaping through the airlock until it reaches equilibrium with the atmosphere. Assuming no leaks, you’ll see the occasional bubble until everything is balanced. I can't say whether that strain is, on average, faster or slower than average. And yes, when you added the hops, amyloglucosidase in the hops could have turned limit dextrins into fermentable sugars, prolonging the fermentation. (I probably wouldn't call it a "secondary" fermentation if the primary fermentation's attenuation wasn’t finished yet.)
Hop creep is where the hops added during dry hopping add enzymes which will continue to attenuate the beer (i.e, the final gravity will get lower). It seems like many (most?) BAs prefer to have a dry hop contact time of just a few days but I choose to have a longer contact time to permit the attenuation via hop creep to come to completion. Cheers!
I would say that the day you get back is when I would consider the beer done, typically for my brewing. Unless you pitched a bunch of yeast, ten days to two weeks in normal fermentation time.
Thanks for all the replies. I got home Friday the 8th and checked the gravity: 1018, which is right on target. However, today, Sunday, I was going to bottle and went to check again:1014! I will measure on Tuesday and see if it's the same. Now I'm with the dilemma of wondering if the dry hops have been in too long (day 11 today) and whether it's worth it to open the fermenter and expose it to oxygen. I have read that two weeks of dry hopping will probably not produce grassy flavors, so not too nervous right now. On the bright side, it's tasting and looking great right now.
I wouldn't open it. It's not worth oxidizing the beer. What's the worst that can happen if you just call it? I guess you could get bottle bombs if you're bottling, but you can always adjust the priming sugar down to compensate.
Funny you should ask. It was OK for a while, but it never had much hoppiness despite the quantity of hops that went into it. Now, three months later, it is oxidized (some pour purple-brown) and the bottles are gushers. It has led me back to researching what causes bottles to gush, especially after so long - which leads me to believe it's not a wild yeast infection. Hoppy beers have been a source of frustration for me, as all other styles -stouts, hefeweizens, fruit beer - all turn out great, but APAs and IPAs not so much... Thanks for inquiring.
Is this just something you observed only with your hoppy (i.e., dry hopped) beers? Do your non-hoppy beers ever gush? Cheers!
Well, classically people associate gushers with the bottled beers being contaminated (infected). As regards dry hopping beer there is a phenomenon referred to as "hop creep". It turns out that hops contain enzymes which result in re-fermentation of the beer. There are a number of methods which commercial breweries can 'manage' the aspect of hop creep (e.g., pasteurization to kill the yeast, completely filter out the yeast prior to dry hopping, cold crash the beer to make the yeast go dormant, etc.). We homebrewers typically do not pasteurize or filter our beers so we have a smaller 'toolbox' to manage hop creep. It is possible that you are seeing gushers with your dry hopped beers due to the hop creep effect. More reading on the topic of hop creep: https://www.morebeer.com/articles/Hop_Creep A 'worst case' situation of hop creep for bottle conditioned beers are what we call bottle bombs (i.e., over carbonation results in bottles exploding). As regards your beers brewed with fruit additions it was likely a situation of the sugars contributed by the fruit resulted in continuing re-fermentation in the bottled beers. Cheers!
Cool, thanks. VikeMan hipped me to hop creep, and when I read up on it, one of the main culprits is Amarillo, which I used in the batch I was inquiring about. The fruit beers were probably from exactly what you said. What puzzles me is why they gush after so long - it normally happens after 3 months.
Times I've had hop creep was dry hopping in the summer. My beer storage room in basement is at room temp. So higher in summer. When it gets colder, no problem it seems.
I had the same problem with gushers, but not specifically with hop forward batches. Bottles were fine in the first month-ish. Why that stopped? IDK. Possibly with individually dosing bottles with dextrose but I can't link that exactly.
The same. My problems with hoppy brews seem to happen in summer when the basement temps get higher. I had hop creep last year dry hopping with Amarillo and Simcoe, and this particular beer from the thread fermented at a high temperature. I might try next time to get it done in late spring and maybe use Kveik.
