Fermenting or not fermenting, that is the question.

Having given the beer four days since giving it a good stir to try to kick it back in to life, I decided it was time to take another measurement. Rather than taking the lid off I decided I would draw a sample through the tap. I wanted to do this for a number of reasons: I wanted to avoid taking the top off and exposing it to yet more oxygen, I wanted to be able to taste a sample, I wanted to be able to get a more accurate hydrometer reading, and I wanted to test out the tap before the bottling stage as I suspected being so low it would catch too much of the sediment.



Having put the bucket on a thick book to raise the tap off the ground to allow me to attach the tubing, I was fairly easily able to fill the tube the hydrometer came in with beer. As it happened I originally filled it to a level where, with the hydrometer in, the beer came up exactly to the top of the tube. This made taking a hydrometer reading very difficult with the beer making a bell shape at the top. The tube was also very tight, and so the hydrometer didn't move smoothly up and down. However, taking a number of readings I would estimate the gravity at between 1017 and 1018 - in other words it might have gone down a fraction from the previous readings of 1018, but I'm far from certain that it has. I carefully poured out some of the beer (into my mouth of course but I'll come onto the tasting in a minute) and tried to take another reading with the hydrometer, but the tube was definitely too narrow lower down, so I couldn't. I took some reassurance from noticing that before drawing any beer, the lid of the bucket was noticeably pushed up in the centre, presumably the result of the beer producing co2 and the pressure building up. This dropped a little after I drew off some beer - perhaps there is still hope that it is fermenting ok.

So onto the tasting... I was very pleasantly surprised. Having fairly recently drunk a bottle of this exact beer (thanks Phil - see my blogroll for his blog) I could clearly recognise the taste as the same, just currently with a milder and shallower flavour and perhaps a fraction sweeter.

As for for using the tap, my suspicions were correct. With it being so low down the bucket, it picked up far to much sediment. I will use tubing fed into the top of the bucket to bottle the beer rather than the tap.

Overall I'm not very happy with the progress of this beer. Having nothing to compare it against, its hard for me to know whether things are still ok or not. After all, it is to be expected that the beer will be late finishing, given the 17-18 degree average temperature normally, not to mention the several days of 16 degree temperatures while the boiler was broken, which caused it to stop fermenting entirely. The pushed up lid today, and the hiss and bubbles when I opened the lid a few days ago give me hope. I will leave the beer alone for another couple of days before taking the lid off to inspect things and take a more accurate hydrometer reading.

If I'm keeping everything crossed for the wine, I'd better tie myself in knots for the beer...