ok tons of mistakes...

Ok my wife and I are brewing together last night. We are brewing a Russian imperial stout. Supposed to finish at %9.5... This is our second batch. First mistake.... Somehow we didn't boil enough preboiled water so when we were done brewing there was only 1 gallon of preboiled top off water. Also there was only like one and a half gallons of wort! So both top off water and wort equaled 2.5 gallons! So I set the lid on the fermenter and boil another pot of water cool it in ice bath poor it on fermenter....still 1.25 gallons short! So I do it again. Only this time I'm out of ice and half to use cold water and stir with a sanitized spoon. Finally got to 5 gallons. I pitch my dry yeast right on top then got to worrying about better aeration since its such a heavy beer. So I got the sanitized spoon and stirred vigorously... Mistake? It's been maybe 15 hours now and my wife says it is bubbling a little but not near as well as our first batch... So how boned are we here?

Why are you boiling top off water?

All in all I'd say you're fine, just let it be. You probably won't hit 9.5% abv unless you made a yeast starter.

Ok correction...wife sees b bubbling

Probably not that bad. Worst case you make a beer that doesn't fully attenuate and has a pretty high ABV, but also a lot of malty sweetness at the end. There are worse things you could do. Out of curiosity, how much yeast did you pitch? Without seeing a recipe or an OG, I would guess you would need a decent starter for an RIS.

Next time, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to have an unopened bottle or three of water around just in case you end up running short on boiled top off again. Same thing happened to me last brew day; I grossly understimated the amount of tap/Brita water I was boiling for top off. As for why I boiled it... well, the Brita is not exactly sanitary nor sterile.

If I read it correctly OG is 1.062
I suck at reading it though... Safale bry-97 1 pack just sprinkled.... Should I pitch more???

And did stirring them do damage?

No damage, But different and more yeast for 9.5% beers. I don't think the Bry-97 is made for ABV beers that high. BUT, if that is an accurate reading, then you should be alright....

as long as you sanitized the spoon you should be all good, just try not to open and close your fermenter too much, if after 24 hours you already have signs of fermentation it sounds like your doing alright, next time I would make a yeast starter they are very easy and will help you with those higher gravity beers (all beers), this is probably the easiest most important thing you can do to make your beer better. When I made extract beer in college we always used cold tap water and never had any contamination problems and we used c-brite as our sanitizer so there is definitly some lee way.

Should o get more yeast make a starter and add?

You could, but if you could re-check that F.G. for us we could let you know....

FG? You mean OG? My wife says she saw no bubbling but I know sometimes the airlock won't bubble.

TheCollector said:

FG? You mean OG? My wife says she saw no bubbling but I know sometimes the airlock won't bubble.

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Lol yes, sorry

Should I give it a day or 2? Before retesting? Should I go ahead and order more of the same yeast tonight? So it gets here quickly? Is like to hit the intended abv.

That's what I am getting at man, if your reading is accurate at 1.062 then the one pack of BRY-97 should be fine. If you hit that gravity of 1.090 or whatever was as intended in the recipe, then yes, you need more yeast (and possibly a different strain) to hit you F.G....

Why am I soo below expected OG?

Good question, list recipe and process....

1.062 OG will not be 9.5%, depending on FG probably 5-6%, that OG should be fine for 1 pack of dry yeast.

Probably a good idea to list up your recipe and ingredients used.

I'm guessing this was an all extract batch, or possibly extract with steeping grains, and if you had all of the ingredients for a 9.5% Russian Imperial Stout added to and totaling the amount of wort you first ended up with (1.5 Gallons) that's going to be a very dense, thick, syrupy volume of liquid. Getting that effectively mixed with your top up water would have been quite a challenge.

So, assuming you did add a grain/malt bill that would produce a 9.5% RIS you're way underpitched. I'm also not sure, even if you were to go and get another packet, or possibly two, then pitched them into the fermenter, if that strain of yeast would be able to handle such a strong alcohol environment, and therefore wouldn't be able to attenuate fully.

Had a quick scan through the Bry-97 PDF and can't see any mention of alcohol tolerance for this yeast.

http://www.danstaryeast.com/sites/default/files/bry-97_americanwestcoastyeast.pdf

Thanks for all the help! It was a extract + specialty grains....a BUTTLOAD of specialty grains.
It's from brewbrothers.biz
Size = 5.0 gal OG = 1.092 FG = 1.020 IBU = 40.5 SRM = 50.5 ABV = 9.5%
I know it had 9 lbs of gold LME
But ill have to get home from work here in a few min before I can post the rest of the recipe....

Do you think I should pop it open and stir the crap out of it with a sanitized spoon?

Why would they list that yeast as an option if it won't finish out the beer? What dry yeast can I use to finish it out? Or do I have to go to liquid for that?

9lbs gold LME
steeping grains are
1.50 lbs Brown malt
1.25 lbs chocolate malt (350L)
1.25 lbs crystal 120L
0.75 lbs crystal 60L
0.50 lbs Munich malt (light)
0.15 lbs black malt
Hops
1.0 oz centennial at 60 min
.05 oz Willamette at 10 min
30 min steep
60 min boil

I entered that lot into beercalculus and this is what it shows;


Malt & Fermentables

% LB OZ °L PPG


63% 9 0 Briess CBW Golden Light LME Late Boil 4° 35
10% 1 8 Brown Malt Steep 65° 32
9% 1 4 American Crystal 120L Steep 120° 34
9% 1 4 Briess Chocolate 350 L Steep 350° 34
5% 0 12 American Crystal 60L Steep 60° 34
3% 0 8 Munich Malt - 10L Steep 10° 36
1% 0 2 Black (Patent) Malt Steep 500° 25



Specific Gravity
1.077 OG
(1.068 to 1.080)
18.7° Plato
1.019 FG
(1.017 to 1.021)
4.8° Plato
Color
50° SRM
98° EBC
Black
Mash Efficiency
75 %
Steep Efficiency
37.5%

Hops

Use Time OZ Hop Variety AA » IBU


boil 60 min 1 Centennial ~ pellet 10 » 53.3
boil 10 min 0.500 Willamette ~ pellet 5.5 » 5.3


Bitterness
58.6 IBU
ƒ: Tinseth
10 HBU
BU:GU
0.77
Yeast


Alcohol
7.7% ABV
6% ABW
Calories
254
per 12 oz.
Miscellaneous Ingredients



Couldn't find any info in beercalculus for the Danstar Bry-97 yeast. It looks like that load of grains and malt comes to an OG of about 1.077, estimated FG somewhere around 1.019 giving an ABV of around 7.7%. So maybe not too overwhelming for your yeast.

Maybe another pack added soon would be beneficial.

I'd probably just let it go as is, try to maintain some good fermentation temps for the next four or five days, ramp up the temps to about 70 to 72 for a couple of weeks after that and then establish stable FG readings.

No need to worry about trying to get an evenly mixed liquid in your fermenter now. That's really only necessary to get an, as accurate as possible, OG reading. The fermentation process will have everything moving about and mixing from the convection type movement so by the time your beer is ready to bottle there won't be any unfermented malt in there.

Ok called the brewbrothers.biz number and I must say their customer service is fantastic. They forgot to send a champagne yeast to help with bottle carbing and he threw in another pack of bry-97 for free and says it will handle the high level of alcohol just fine.

TheCollector said:

Why am I soo below expected OG?

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Common mistake when making extracts with top off water. You did hit your intended OG but its not mixed well enough. Dont worry about it, you will hit the numbers the kit says with an extract recipe. Use the numbers the kit said. It just didnt get mixed well. Its almost impossible to get it mixed exactly but you have a set amount of fermentables and the kit OG-FG is based on those.

Well I sure hope so

Where did you get that beer calculus and how much was it? Is there a smart phone app like it? That's awesome

It's free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!:rockin::fro:

http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

Not sure about smart phone app and it, beercalculus, is a bit glitchy on my ipad.

Thanks!

I like hopville and I have a couple of recipes saved there, but I will tell you that it absolutely SUCKS on my iPhone. Nearly unusable. And no app, as far as I know.

No complaints on my computer, though.

And for those who use it, did I just not notice it before or is the stepped mashing schedule a new feature? I mostly do extract with some partial mash BIAB, so it is entirely possible that it is NOT new.

TheCollector said:

Should I give it a day or 2? Before retesting? Should I go ahead and order more of the same yeast tonight? So it gets here quickly? Is like to hit the intended abv.

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Just an FYI, with an OG of 1.062 you will not hit your intended abv. Theres just really no way without completely drying out the beer, just chalk it up to a learning experience and move on. Let it finish out and you will probably have an ~5-6% beer to drink. No need to pitch another packet, or pitch more for bottle conditioning, nor do you need to take a sanitized spoon and stir it as that will oxidize the **** out of it.

You guys think 8 should pitch the other pack of yeast I got in the mail? Then wait another 2 weeks then secondary. Then add the champaign yeast 3-4 days before bottling?

Anybody?

TheCollector said:

You guys think 8 should pitch the other pack of yeast I got in the mail? Then wait another 2 weeks then secondary. Then add the champaign yeast 3-4 days before bottling?

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Hasn't there been any noticeable change in SG since you last posted about this batch?

Can't really offer any advice without a bit more detail on the current situation.

Well I have not taken another reading but it sure never got really vigorous. I could take a reading tonight

Its a bit tricky to make some beer,you always have to completely and carefully follow some guidelines and directions in doing so. But,is there any other options to make just in case you made the wrong one or you skipped following one of its directions or guidelines?

TheCollector said:

Well I have not taken another reading but it sure never got really vigorous. I could take a reading tonight

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OK, it's only been in primary for 10 days (?), hasn't it?

If you're feeling really impatient:fro: (or just concerned that nothing has happened, yet) go ahead, open the fermenter, have a look to see if there's any signs of a krausen ring. Take a sample and do a hydrometer test whilst you are at it. Then come back and let us know where your Specific Gravity is now.

Ten days is still way too early, in my book, to be even thinking about racking an Imperial Stout off the yeast cake as there's so much, visually undynamic, action going on that will help your beer turn out the best it can.

Oh no no you misunderstood me. I'm patient. I won't move it from primary for at least 3 weeks. So I'm gonna take a reading tonight and see what it looks like and where its at. But say it measures high......should I just sprinkle or rehydrate? Thanks for all your help btw

TheCollector said:

But say it measures high......should I just sprinkle or rehydrate?

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Either of those methods would be fine, if needed. Rehydrating the yeast would be the better/most efficient of the two.

TheCollector said:

Thanks for all your help btw

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A pleasure

Well I opened it 3 nights ago and added that other yeast. So l opened it last night for a reading. It's at 1.012 or 14 ...it was supposed to finish at 1.020.... Maybe I'm reading it wrong but I guess fermentation is done

Look ok?