Ginger Porter: OG at 1.440?! One Week Later Stuck at 1.040

***Hello! This is my obligatory first post disclaimer!***

I'm new to brewing and just concocted my 3rd 5gal batch. It is supposed to be a ginger porter.

Ingredients:
1.5# Crystal 90L
#1 Coffee
.5# Chocolate
.5# Cara Munich I
6.6# Light LME
3# Dark DME
6oz Smashed Ginger Root
1¼ oz Perle hop pellets
¾ oz Saaz pellets
½ tsp Irish moss last 15 min of boil.
¾ oz Saaz pellets (aramatic hops)
5gal of water


I brewed using the method described in the recipe I based this porter off of (here) and cooled the wort.

At 60F I measured the OG and got 1.144! That is much higher than I've ever got before. There aren't clear directions on how to measure OG with the hydrometer outside of putting it in the cylinder and minding the temperature. The beer was not settled and VERY heavy in suspended particles. Using my rudimentary college physics knowledge I thought that shouldn't matter. The particles, if not dissolved, affect the volume of the liquid not the density.... right?

In any case... I pitched 2 packets (per recommendation of the store employee) of a yeast I can't recall right now, while I'm away from home. I then stored the soon-to-be beer in my room at probably 60F. I left to visit family for just over 54 hours and upon return noticed nothing but some condensation in my fermentation lock. I gave it a few more days, nothing! Opened up the beer to find that fermentation had occured already! There was foam residue lining the walls of the bucket about 4 inches from the top of the liquid. So, I measured TG and got, a still very high, 1.040.

I tossed in some yeast energizer and food... I stared at the surface of the liquid and did notice a tiny bubble or two rising every 10 seconds or so.. but nothing big enough to move the fermentation lock.

It has now been a week since I brewed. What should I do?! :'(

PS - The 'beer' taste great already! Lots of ginger but obviously, still very sweet.

Thank you for any advice!

Cheers,
- A

Unlikely that your starting gravity was 1.144 unless you significantly under shot the amount of water you used. Most likely a case of top of water not mixing properly with the thicker portion of the wort.

1.040 is quite high to finish, although there is a lot of crystal malt in the recipe and the fermentability of extract can vary quite a bit. I'd first try warming the fermenter a bit and gently swirling it to see if the yeast will start up again.

EDIT: Have you calibrated your hydrometer with 60* water? Its is quite likely that it is off a bit.

Your gravity reading was off because the wort didn't mix with the top-off water, assuming you topped your wort off with water at the end. I punched that recipe into BrewPal and I get an OG of 1.082 for five gallons. That FG is way too high at 1.040. I'm starting to think your hydrometer is way off. Have you tested it in plain water?

no way you hit 1.144 with that recipe. Obligatory question: are you sure you are reading the hydrometer correctly? Also, have you checked it's accuracy using just water? GIven that you have an unreasonably high OG and a current SG of 1.040, I wonder if your hydrometer is off.

It seems like a right of passage to brew something big right out of the starting gate for new brewers, now all you need is a bottle bomb and you will be official

That gravity is pretty high, I would expect that to come out in the 1.075 range, but I do not know how much the coffee would impact gravity...probably not that much though since I brew my coffee pretty strong and it never tastes like its syrup. That said, I am guessing you have a significant measurement error. Your hydrometer should read 1.000 in water, so try that to see if it is calibrated.

Make sure the wort is well mixed before taking a sample. What I used to do when I used fermentation buckets was cool the wort, dump it into the ferm bucket, then take the reading in the bucket with a sanitized hydrometer.

60 is too cold to ferment most ales so there is a good chance they went dormant. The first thing I would do is raise the temp to the upper 60's and regularly agitate the bucket and hope that will get the yeast to kick off again. Let us know how your calibration test went and if warming up the beer helps get fermentation to kick in.

My RIS I used 20lbs of grains and was around 65% efficiency and got 1.092.

With the DME and LME amount in this recipe mixed with all the crystal and chocolate malt etc, I don't think 1.144 is that far out of the realm. EDIT: if the volume was lower than expected.

I agree with checking the hydrometer in water. It's probably reading way too high. I bet it measures water at 1.020-1.030.

I just put this recipe together on brewmasterswarehouse.com's brewbuilder and came up with 1.112 without the Caramunich or coffee, or ginger.

I used my own calculator - which has been accurate w/i .010 despite my flaws on brew days. I get between 1.07 to 1.08 depending on effeciency (varying between 70 and 90%).

If it is not the hydrometer, it must be the dilution. Looking at your reference recipe - did you remember to add the 2 gallons of water? I get 1.115 if it was 3 gallons instead of 5...

Thank you for the input! ^_^

I'm new to this but... the beer was indeed at 5 gallons before I took the reading (then again; while doing tech support it is, sadly, always important to ask if the hardware is plugged in!). The idea of it not being mixed completely though, did not occur to me (my intellect has its limits). I added the water "on top" of the wort and did not stir, also I took the sample from the bottom of the bucket via spigot. --this strikes me as the most reasonable cause of the OG problem.

I never thought of the hydrometer being off but I will test this when I get home. This all may explain why my last beer had such a high initial gravity. I deemed it barley wine but it didn't taste as such... I calculated the avb at 10.2% but could tell it wasn't much past 8. There was a pound of honey involved but... still not enough to bring it up that high.

I think at least one person may have misunderstood my use of #1 of coffee. This was coffee roasted malt, not coffee beans.

Regardless, I'm hoping that a combo of a bad OG reading and a misreading hydrometer will give me a finished and delicious beer that will not need more attention than to be bottled

Thank you for the insight, I'll get back to y'all after I get home and check things out.

voicelex said:

I added the water "on top" of the wort and did not stir, also I took the sample from the bottom of the bucket via spigot. --this strikes me as the most reasonable cause of the OG problem.

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here is exactly the reason for your high OG. To figure out your actual OG, multiply the volume of wort from the kettle by 144 (from your erroneous OG) and divide by the final volume (I assume 5 gallons). This at least will give you something close.

I'd still be worried about your latest reading of 1.040. I can't really think of a reason any beer would be done at that gravity. Either it's still fermenting, it's stuck, or you misread the hydrometer. Give it a couple of days and check again.

voicelex said:

The idea of it not being mixed completely though, did not occur to me (my intellect has its limits). I added the water "on top" of the wort and did not stir, also I took the sample from the bottom of the bucket via spigot. --this strikes me as the most reasonable cause of the OG problem.

Click to expand...

haha ive been having the same problem. I made a batch of brown ale from a recipe with an OG of 1.051-1.054 and my OG was 1.032. But the FG was 1.012 and it was a good beer! alls well that ends well i guess.

Alrighty!

My hydrometer is calibrated correctly. That answers one question.

The good news is; the beer is actually still fermenting! Though very slowly and without any noticeable lock-bubbles the beer has reduced its gravity from 1.040 to 1.030.

I'm going to transfer it to a secondary and let it sit another week, check the gravity and go from there.

Thanks for all the advice/help folks!

Happy New Year ^_^

I wouldn't move it to secondary yet. Doing so may actually stall the fermentation, which seems to be struggling to finish.

JLem said:

I wouldn't move it to secondary yet. Doing so may actually stall the fermentation, which seems to be struggling to finish.

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Ahh! I was wondering if I'd remove too much yeast. Thank you! I'll wait till it is lower to move it, or at 2 weeks.

Cheers!

voicelex said:

Ahh! I was wondering if I'd remove too much yeast. Thank you! I'll wait till it is lower to move it, or at 2 weeks.

Cheers!

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What is the reason for moving it? many people, myself included, do not use a secondary vessel unless adding additional ingredients like fruit or oak or if the beer is going to be bulk aged for a while. For anything else, just leave it alone in the primary and let the yeast do their thing. I bet you'll be ready to bottle if you just leave it be for 3 weeks. Racking increases your chance at an infection and oxidation, not to mention you want sufficient contact time with all the yeast so they can "clean up" the beer, so only rack it if it is necessary.

There could be the possibility that the ginger is impeding the yeast. It's a very potent herb and 6oz is a lot.

I've not used liquid extract, but at least with the amount of specialty grains in there you're probably still going to have quite a bit of lingering sweetness.

I calculate your OG at 1.087.

You didn't mention what yeast you used. It can make a big difference on where the beer ends. 87 to 30 is 66%. You have a lot of unfermentable sugars in there; you might be about done.

Like everyone else says, leave it where it is for a while.

Well I read that after 2-3 weeks the yeast start to break down and can impart a 'yeasty' flavor to the beer if that quantity of dead yeast is left in contact with the beer. Also, I was intending on adding some ginger to the secondary.

My last beer was much clearer and I used a secondary.

voicelex said:

Well I read that after 2-3 weeks the yeast start to break down and can impart a 'yeasty' flavor to the beer if that quantity of dead yeast is left in contact with the beer. Also, I was intending on adding some ginger to the secondary.

My last beer was much clearer and I used a secondary.

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Here comes the war again. Long story short is that you will not have yeast off flavors, your last beer's clarity had nothing to do with the secondary...that is dependent upon other factors. What you want to be doing now is regularly swirling your carboy to get the yeast back into suspension. Do this every time you think about it and you will probably get into an acceptable gravity in no time.

What about fermentation temperature? He said he's fermenting at 60degrees. Could be too cold for the yeast?

Verio said:

What about fermentation temperature? He said he's fermenting at 60degrees. Could be too cold for the yeast?

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It is low for ale fermentation, but the actual fermentation is an exothermic process, which will raise the beer temp a few degrees, so he is likely OK, especially since he is mid-fermentation.

However, it is not a bad idea at this point to raise the temp higher. As fermentation slows down, raising the temp can help push the beer to its FG. In fact, it would probably help a lot to get this beer up to room temp. The majority of fermentation is done, so there is little need to worry about off-flavors at the higher temp.

I've tested the gravity again, it went down .002. I agitated the beer and will continue to until it drops to a reasonable FG.

As for the temp. 60F is room temp at my house! However, I did put a space heater in my brew room (we have a few other batches going) and it's more like 65-67F in there now.

Side note: what would be a max bottling FG?.. is there such a thing? I'm worried about bottle bombs.

voicelex said:

I've tested the gravity again, it went down .002. I agitated the beer and will continue to until it drops to a reasonable FG.

As for the temp. 60F is room temp at my house! However, I did put a space heater in my brew room (we have a few other batches going) and it's more like 65-67F in there now.

Side note: what would be a max bottling FG?.. is there such a thing? I'm worried about bottle bombs.

Click to expand...

Glad to hear the gravity is still dropping. Increasing the temp with the space heater should help. For a biggish beer like this I would expect you to get down into the 1.027 - 1.023 range. There is no magic FG to bottle at - just make sure it is stable over a period of days. For this beer, I would just be patient and try to forget about it for another week or two and see where things stand. Don't rush it into the bottles.

good for you keeping the room temp low (I assume it is by choice?). I try to keep the house in the mid 60s now, even lower when everyone is sleeping.

So hey...

The gravity is definitely stuck at 1.030. The beer tastes great to me but I'm worried that it's still too heavy.

Regardless of my opinion of its density, with such inactive yeast will the bottles (22oz) sufficiently carbonate? So far both of my beers haven't been that carbonated after 2 weeks (using the standard amount of priming sugar) though the batch I'm drinking now seems to taste better (going on 8 weeks in the bottle) and has more carbonation than it did 2 weeks ago. Is it that my beers are just so heavy that they need more time?

I can probably answer these questions with simple logic... but I'd love to hear some opinions on the matter! ^_^

PanzerBanana said:

There could be the possibility that the ginger is impeding the yeast. It's a very potent herb and 6oz is a lot.

I've not used liquid extract, but at least with the amount of specialty grains in there you're probably still going to have quite a bit of lingering sweetness.

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I've made a ginger pale ale a few times with 2 pounds of ginger in the boil, and a few ounces "dry hopped" later on. Sucker finished at about 1.010 so I don't think ginger impedes yeast in the slightest.

Docjowles said:

I've made a ginger pale ale a few times with 2 pounds of ginger in the boil, and a few ounces "dry hopped" later on. Sucker finished at about 1.010 so I don't think ginger impedes yeast in the slightest.

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I was thinking it was the amount of malt/grain in the brew more than the ginger at this point. Thanks for the info though

voicelex said:

So hey...

The gravity is definitely stuck at 1.030. The beer tastes great to me but I'm worried that it's still too heavy.

Regardless of my opinion of its density, with such inactive yeast will the bottles (22oz) sufficiently carbonate? So far both of my beers haven't been that carbonated after 2 weeks (using the standard amount of priming sugar) though the batch I'm drinking now seems to taste better (going on 8 weeks in the bottle) and has more carbonation than it did 2 weeks ago. Is it that my beers are just so heavy that they need more time?

I can probably answer these questions with simple logic... but I'd love to hear some opinions on the matter! ^_^

Click to expand...

Its been 11 days since you brewed? If I were you, I'd really really suggest that you wait at least 2 more weeks before you make any determinations about inactive yeast or gravity being stuck.

My first brews stayed no less than 21 days in primary. Some of my recent ones have spent as much as 10 months in fermenters. But usually more like 4 weeks. Relax, don't worry, have a brew.

RedIrocZ-28 said:

Its been 11 days since you brewed? If I were you, I'd really really suggest that you wait at least 2 more weeks before you make any determinations about inactive yeast or gravity being stuck.

My first brews stayed no less than 21 days in primary. Some of my recent ones have spent as much as 10 months in fermenters. But usually more like 4 weeks. Relax, don't worry, have a brew.

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Woah... where did you get this impression?... The beer was brewed on Dec. 24th ... it's passing 19 days. I understand it can take a while but this shouldn't.