fermenting room temperature problem

[mwone13]

Any thoughts would be appreciated, 2 weeks ago I started a new brew, simple bitter recipe 3.6kg muntons lme, 45 goldingd 45 challenger, with 200g of crystal malt. All went fine through the brew day. finished with an og at 1040, fermenting was quite rapid bubbling away every 1/2 secs fiercly for 24 hours, then settled down. After one week I moved the brew into secondary with a reading of 1012.
It's been in there a week no bubbling action and just checked to move to bottles and I have a reading of 1021. It's gone backwards. The room the beer is in has been fairly warm/hot, say between 23/30c for most of the time. Is this the problem?????
Also is the beer beyond hope or can i retrieve it??

Many thanks in advance for answers.

[soupdragon]

Hi

I'd say one or other of your readings is wrong ( probably the last one ). There's no way that your beer can somehow magically find unfermented sugars to bump up the gravity like that. Did you allow for temperature when you checked? Hydrometers are calibrated at a certain temp and anything above or below will give you incorret readings, not the difference yours is showing though. I suggest you double check the beer again and if it's still high you can leave it under air lock till it comes down. Best of luck

Cheers Tom

[HighHops]

Hi mwone13

soupdragon is right the sg can't go back up, unless someones pulling your chain and adding sugar when you're not looking! I'm not sure the temp will have changed that much in racking to now, so Id check your hydrometer. After you've used it do you rinse it and then shake the drops off. I did until I realised that the paper inside the tube moved slightly when I shook it. Mine reads 5 points low. Check it with water at 15C, but at 22C it should still only be 1 point out from 1000

[soupdragon]

Hi mwone13

soupdragon is right the sg can't go back up, unless someones pulling your chain and adding sugar when you're not looking! I'm not sure the temp will have changed that much in racking to now, so Id check your hydrometer. After you've used it do you rinse it and then shake the drops off. I did until I realised that the paper inside the tube moved slightly when I shook it. Mine reads 5 points low. Check it with water at 15C, but at 22C it should still only be 1 point out from 1000

Good spot about the paper HighHops, I'd never have thought of that as mine has the guage printed on the outside.

So then mwone13, did you take another reading? What is it now? If it really has finished fermenting, the surface of the beer should have started to clear a little and most of the yeast should have sunk to the bottom

Cheers Tom

[DaveyT]

If you need to drop the temperature of your brew, you can wrap a wet towel round it. As the towel dries it reduces the temperature of the beer. I think, by about 5 degrees.
My beer is at a similar temp and the towel´s worked wonders, despite its simplicity.
Hope everything´s working out; sounds like a cracker.