I think it might be stuck...

OK so I made a cyser last week and I thought it was fermenting along because there were bubbles in the airlock and on the surface of the liquid. In addition, it foamed a lot when I mixed it.

The problem is that when I tried to take my hydrometer reading, I ran into trouble. Initially the hydrometer is rather low in the liquid, reading roughly 1.065 only 5 days after the pitching of the yeast, which I thought seemed a bit fast because the bubbles weren't coming out that vigorously. But after this initial reading, the hydrometer rises for about a minute until it gets back to about 1.120. So I am not sure which reading to believe.

The process and notes thus far are in the brewlog, here is the link to it.

http://www.gotmead.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13554

well the temperature in the room is about 60ish give or take a few degrees, I'm in philly to its pretty cold around now, and the house costs a lot to heat so we keep it around 60, but the bucket itself is pretty warm to the touch. I don't have a thermometer that could accurately measure the temp inside the bucket at the moment.

I noticed you said you degas you sample, does that mean you should take your hydrometer reading after you've aerated? I took mine before because I figured the foam would get in the way of my reading, I usually just clean the hydrometer then throw it in the primary as opposed to taking a sample, but I suppose I should start taking samples for more accurate readings.

Medsen Fey said:

The 60F temp will keep your fermentation on the slow side. That may be a good thing as you probably retain more volatile aromatic compounds with a slower fermentation.

Click to expand...

Interesting, I didn't know fast and vigorous fermentations were any different than slower ones, cool. Thanks for your help.