May have bottled a stuck fermentation...

Hi All,

I had a high FG reading today when I bottled a Hazelnut Mocha Porter. I'm obviously new to this and decided to bottle anyway. Then I started searching about the high gravity and now I'm worried it was a stuck fermentation and that I'll have bottle bombs...

I brewed the recipe found at this link using a brewed Hazelnut Coffee in the amount called for. It calls for OG of 1.064 to 1.068 and an FG of 1.012 to 1.016:
http://www.boomchugalug.com/downloadables/recipes/mucka.pdf

My original gravity was a bit higher than the recipe called for at 1.071 (and of course I didn't correct it). I know it may not be the best way but Safale S-04 dry yeast was pitched directly on the wort in the primary and stirred in. Beer was in the primary for 7 days at 62 to 64 degrees ambient temp. Transferred to secondary at day 7 and left it alone for 14 days at 62 to 64 degrees until today when I bottled. Final gravity in the bottling bucket with the corn sugar was 1.036.

Should I let it go and relax, don't worry, and have a homebrew or should I be worried about bottle bombs? The brew tasted wonderful before bottling so unless there's a real danger here I'd hate to get rid of it...

Why did you transfer the beer away from the yeast before fermentation was completed?

Put your bottles in sturdy containers just in case.

Obviously a beginners mistake I won't make again! I guess I was just anxious to get it bottled...

What temp did you pitch the yeast?

Hang around the forum for awhile.
Typical time for primary fermentation is two to three weeks for an average gravity beer. At the end of two weeks SG readings can be started to find Final Gravity. By that time about another week or more has passed.

Your beer will be improved if you leave it on the yeast cake after FG is reached. Fermentation produces some natural off flavors. Giving the yeast a few extra days allows the yeast to clean up these off flavors.

In one week open a bottle of your beer to check for the amount of carbonation. If the beer is flat open another in four days. If the carbonation seems to be remaining the same wait another week to open another. Just a way of checking for fermentation happening in the bottle. After three weeks and the carbonation is still not good, you're good to go. No potential bottle bombs.

An OG beer of 1.071 will probably take at least 6 weeks to bottle condition at 70°.

Welcome to brewing and I wish you the best of luck with your beer.

Ianflean said:

What temp did you pitch the yeast?

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Yeast was pitched at 75 degrees.

flars said:

Hang around the forum for awhile.
Typical time for primary fermentation is two to three weeks for an average gravity beer. At the end of two weeks SG readings can be started to find Final Gravity. By that time about another week or more has passed.

Your beer will be improved if you leave it on the yeast cake after FG is reached. Fermentation produces some natural off flavors. Giving the yeast a few extra days allows the yeast to clean up these off flavors.

In one week open a bottle of your beer to check for the amount of carbonation. If the beer is flat open another in four days. If the carbonation seems to be remaining the same wait another week to open another. Just a way of checking for fermentation happening in the bottle. After three weeks and the carbonation is still not good, you're good to go. No potential bottle bombs.

An OG beer of 1.071 will probably take at least 6 weeks to bottle condition at 70°.

Welcome to brewing and I wish you the best of luck with your beer.

Click to expand...

Thanks! I know a lot of people don't do secondaries and I will definitely give it a shot sometime. As for the bottles, I'll keep an eye on them and check one in a week etc. like you recommended. Next time something seems off I'll search BEFORE moving on to the next step lol! I have them in Rubbermaid totes now so hopefully if the worst happens the damages will be minimal...

I pitch mine at about 62... 75 seems to be a bit high, but it shouldn't really eff up a fermentation that badly...

Ianflean said:

I pitch mine at about 62... 75 seems to be a bit high, but it shouldn't really eff up a fermentation that badly...

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Yeah...being a noob I was just following the recipe which called for pitching at 75.

I'm a noob too, but have always pitched low, and tried to keep it low for 2 weeks. Hope it works out for you!

Ianflean said:

I'm a noob too, but have always pitched low, and tried to keep it low for 2 weeks. Hope it works out for you!

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Thanks! Pitched at 75 but immediately placed in 62-64 degree room for the rest of the process. Fermentation was vigorous in the primary by airlock activity for the first 3 to 4 days and tapered off quickly. No airlock activity once in secondary (although I know that doesn't mean fermentation was done).

It's hugely possible that you did and like it was said, cover those up and put them some place where no one will get hurt if they do explode. I feel like many kit instructions are catered towards beginners and pushing the process from grain to glass as quickly as possible. As a newbie to the hobby, I too was eager to get beer. Thankfully, I found this site when I first started brewing and learned that patience is first, good beer is the reward.

Couple other things, ambient temp in a room is not what your wort will be during active fermentation and secondary is an unnecessary step more times than what your kit directions will say.

Most people measure grav before adding priming sugar. How much did you add? But assuming you added a reasonable amount, then that only adds about 3 pts, meaning the beer was at 1.033, which is very high. S04 can sometimes stall but it's nowhere near as bad as Windsor. I brewed once with Windsor and it finished at 1.023. I'm thinking you racked too soon or you didn't aerate well at pitching time or the temp dipped a few degrees (59 degrees would be the absolute lowest for S04 and you were pretty close to that). I think you will definitely have gushers, can't say if they will be bottle bombs. It depends on a few things: how much more fermenting the yeast want to do (if they stalled in the ferment, they may stay stalled in the bottle), the ambient pressure/temp in your house, and the type of bottle. I read somewhere on here that 12 oz glass bottle can't handle much more than 3 volumes of CO2. Don't know if that's accurate but I calculate that in theory you have enough sugar left to go to 7 volumes. Keep an eye out for bulging caps (a raised circle in the middle).

Option 1: put them in sturdy tote or cooler with a heavy weight on top to contain explosions, then open a bottle every 2 days (shouldn't take more than a week or so if they yeast are happy, or a few weeks if they are not) and once they're getting too carbonated put them all in the fridge and never take them out until time to drink and NEVER let anyone take one home. Lucky for you, a little less carbonation and little more sugar will taste good in a mocha porter. Option 2: if you don't have the fridge space or don't like option 1, leave at room temp but once they get overcarbonated, "burp" the bottles every day by taking caps off and letting sit with caps on top (to keep out bacteria and wild yeast) for say an hour, then recap and put back in your bomb proof box. I have never done this but I know it has been done succesfully. http://www.ehow.com/how_6878285_do-over_carbonated-beer-home-brewing_.html Option 3: Safest, but is much more likely to spoil the beer. Pour all the beer carefully back into bottling bucket with as little splashing as possible. Add a little fresh yeast and let ferment until gravity stops dropping (at least down to 1.020), then add priming sugar and bottle as usual.
I would do option 1.
For what it's worth, I always bottle one or two in 12 or 20 oz soda bottles. When these are very firm you know the beer is carbonated. Plastic soda bottles (especially the smaller ones) can handle at least 10 volumes of CO2 so they are much less likely to explode than glass and much less dangerous if they do. If they were to expand beyond normal size (although I've ever heard of that happening) then you definitely have overcarbonation. I don't know how many volumes it takes to expand plastic past normal size, but I bet it happens after glass bottles have already exploded.

Thanks everyone. At least I have some ideas on where to go from here on this one. Priming sugar was 5oz dissolved in 2 cups boiling water and put into bottling bucket before the beer and then stirred around. FG reading was taken after adding the priming sugar. If it makes any difference, conditioning (whether ideal or not) will take place at the same 64 degree ambient temp as fermentation. We keep the whole house set consistently at that temp during the winter and I don't really have anywhere else to put it.

Bottles are secure in Rubbermaid containers with weight on the lids. I've got my fingers crossed and will probably open the first bottle within a day or two to see what's happening with it. If they're not going crazy and I get a reasonable carbonation level I'll put them right in the fridge and keep them there. If I get a gusher, I guess I'll call this one a loss and maybe try the recipe again making sure fermentation is complete before bottling!

Speaking of bottle bombs. This was my 2nd to last IPA

^ that looks like blown airlock not blow out glass bottles. Or is that the aftermath once the bottles were removed?

You are correct. Airlock clogged and blew

Next time use a blowoff tube instead.

Tonyfort, how are the bottles carbing?

Popped one open on Sunday; virtually no carbonation. Could kinda taste a little fizz on the tongue but no head or bubbles in the glass and not even a pfft when opening. I've been checking on them daily to look for any bulging caps, etc., but so far all is well. Probably crack another one this upcoming weekend to see where they're at.

From reading around the forum, if these things don't go exploding, I guess it's possible fermentation could have just been done. All the extract in the kit was dark LME which I've heard is notorious for having low fermentable sugars and I could have boiled at too high a heat. Also, I didn't re-hydrate yeast, just pitched dry per the instructions so that may have reduced effectiveness. Also, looking at some of the calculators, it seems as though I should have pitched more yeast than I did to begin with. I guess time will tell!

These are all reasonable points but I find it hard to believe you have that much unfermentable stuff left. Also if that were the only problem then the yeast would have no problem fermenting the priming sugar and carbonating the beer. So if the bottles aren't getting carbed in another week or so then I think you have a stuck fermentation. I've never dealt with that exact problem and I've never heard of anyone bottling a stuck fermentation so I'm not sure if the yeast will ever carb the bottles but I would bet that they will eventually. So you might have bottle bombs but if so it will take at least a few weeks or months before that happens.
The last option is that you made a mistake reading the gravity at bottling time so next time you crack one open, check the gravity again. With carbonated beer the hydrometer readings will be artificially high due to bubbles but you don't have that issue at the moment. Good luck.

Another thing you can do is add a drop of fresh yeast to bottle and see how it carbs. Pour a beer into a small soda bottle, add yeast and crush the bottle a bit before screwing on the top. If bottle expands to normal size it's carbing. If fresh yeast works much faster than the other bottles then you have a stuck fermentation. But you should only add a tiny bit of yeast, less than a pinch.