Not stuck this time

mparmer · 09-04-2009, 12:48 PM

My first 2 kits stuck after barely 24 hrs of bubbling through the airlock. I used muntons dry yeast on both and had trouble with room temp. This time, I double pitched coopers dry yeast and have kept the room temp between 66 and 72 and I still have bubbling after 6 days. It's kinda freakin me out!
Kit 1 was True Brew Nut brown ale (still drinkin, tastes good now that it's had time to mellow out, about 6 or 7 weeks old)
Kit 2 was a Midwest Autumn Ale (still bottle conditioning at room temp)
Kit 3 is a Midwest Porter

BTW, on that Porter kit, I added an extra lb of Dark DME and about a lb of dark brown sugar and wound up with an OG of 1.062. Did I turn it into a Stout? And should I do a 3 week fermentation? (I don't have a secondary bucket)

batfishdog37 · 09-04-2009, 01:55 PM

Did you get gravity readings on either of your first two? What temps did they hit during fermentation?

You did not turn it into a Stout, unless that is what you want to call it. In that case you can and did.

It is fairly common to leave beer in the primary for 4 weeks and also to skip the secondary, especially with a dark beer.

phatuna · 09-04-2009, 02:41 PM

Tell us about your hydrometer readings. Sounds like your first 2 had rapid fermentations which is very common (especially when temps are high).

Also note that room temp and the temp of your fermenting wort are two seperate things. Fermenting wort will have a higher temp than the room due to activity within. Typically 4-10 degrees higher than room temp.

Search "swamp cooler" for ways to deal with temp problems. stabilizing your temp during fermentation is extremely important to producing quality beer. Muntons fermentation temp range is high 50's to mid 70's. The middle of this range is a good temp to shoot for.

mparmer · 09-04-2009, 05:45 PM

Batch 1 OG was about 1.051 and I finally got it restarted by pitching a pack of coopers after it had been stuck on 1.02something about a week and basically the same thing happened with Batch 2. I finally got them down to a FG of about 1.012 before bottling. It was about into that 3rd week of batch2 that I got it through my thick head that my room temps going up into the mid 70's meant that my fermenter temp was going up into the low 80's and my yeast was dropping out before was done. Does that sound right?

ifishsum · 09-04-2009, 06:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mparmer

It was about into that 3rd week of batch2 that I got it through my thick head that my room temps going up into the mid 70's meant that my fermenter temp was going up into the low 80's and my yeast was dropping out before was done. Does that sound right?

Not really - there's 2 issues at work here. High fermentation temperatures are bad for flavor, but that's probably not what caused your beers to get stuck - in fact the higher temperatures should have helped that. Cooling things down actually has a tendency to slow down the process a bit, but produce a cleaner tasting beer.

As far as getting stuck at 1.02X, I'd be more likely to blame that on the yeast itself rather than the high temperatures. That seems to be a common occurrence with Munton's dry yeast. Your third batch is using a different (better IMO) yeast and is also a higher gravity, which is why you're seeing more activity.