Milk Stout Kit Fermentation problem

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shadows69

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This is from a kit. I know i am still a newbie but this kit I did before my first all grain brew.
Anyway the problem I have is my starting OG was 1.055 and my FG should be between 1.020-1.024.
Mine is stuck at 1.030 I have tested on Sunday and Today still no change. I want to rack it to a secondary carboy.
Should I wait a couple more days or rack it?
It's been 10 days as of today.
Temp of the brew is between 63 - 64F as of now.
Will the FG come down some if I rack it to a secondary?
The kit instructions says to rack it to a secondary before it completes. Those kit instructions I know there not what they claim to be.:mad:
 
Sounds like the yeast is slowing down due to the lower temps. My recommendation is to keep it in the primary, and move it to a warmer location (68 - 72 degrees) you might even jostle it a bit to get some yeast back in suspension... but warming it should re-activate the yeast and finish off just fine in a week or two. As for secondary... its a stout, no need to secondary it, just leave it in primary and check the gravity ever 2 - 3 days till you reach your target FG and then bottle. Good luck!
 
Was this a Brewers Best Milk Stout kit? I have the exact same scenario! Started out @ 1.055 with temp @ 64 deg F. Went down to 1.030 within a week and stuck there. I moved primary to 68 deg room and added another pack of Nottingham dry yeast. Nothing. It's been 3 weeks now and I'm not sure what to do at this point?
 
I'm actually thinking of dumping a 2 qt slury of active yeast that I propagated from a bottle of Victory Helios Farmhouse Ale just for the hell of it.
Farmhouse Milk Stout anyone?
 
Bring the beer to warmer temps. 68-70*, and then rouse the yeast back into suspension(swirling or rocking the fermenter). Worst case scearnio, pick up a $1.99 pack of nottingham, and pitch that in.
 
Im having the same problem with a brewers best Oatmeal Stout kit. OG was 1.052, waited 10 days and im stuck at 1.030.

I transferred to secondary and added a package of coopers dry yeast, got no change in gravity. Then just for the hell of it, I added some dissolved granulated sugar to see if my yeast were still active and sure enough, they are due to the day and a half bubbling I got out of the airlock. I dont think I have enough yeast cells left to finish this fermentation, so I am gonna try a yeast nutrient and see if that does the trick. If not, I am bottling and turning my low gravity stout into a breakfast beer, it will be a 2.8 % ABV. Will probably go good with my morning capotain crunch berries...haha...keep me posted on how your is doing.
 
You are correct this Brewers Best Milk Stout kit. I checked mine today it only dropped to 1.028. I'm doing a milk oatmeal stout (all grain)as well which i just racked into a secondary (just to clear it up). So i thought i would add what's left of the milk oatmeal stout to the milk stout since the yeast is still active and will see if that is enough to lower it. If not i guess just bottle it. I'm going to let it go for another week see what happens. I think I had enough of kits, although I have one left, English bitter, Then it's all grain for me which seems to work very well for me. I keep ya updated.
 
My milk stout got stuck also (all grain). I would taste it before doing too much more. Mine is great right now with the extra sweetness left in and seems to have a nice heavy body, but still finishes quite clean. You might like what you have now better than drying it out more.
 
Mine does taste pretty good but still has bubbles so I am afraid to bottle it and make bombs. Not sure if you can bottle it when it has bubbles in the primary.
 
Hi Guys. Same problem here except my gravity is even higher! (I added a lb of DME to the kit) and my gravity is 1.036. Just picked up a pack of Wyeast to pitch today. I've been hearing that the dry yeast sachet in the kits are weak...
 
I'm doing a milk stout right now, and it sat warm at 74 degrees the first half of the first day, since my storage space under my stairs was a little warmer than i had initially thought. I moved it to the laundry room and it came down to 71-72, and it was bubbling at a pretty good tick last night when I went to bed. When I woke up this morning, the lid was swelled and the thing was hissing loudly at me like it was preparing to launch the airlock into space. I had to put a blowoff hose on there.
 
So I got a question about fermentation. I have my milk stout in the primary and it has been fermenting for 3 days at about 68-72 degrees. The first two days I had good activity, now im not noticing any activity. are my temps ok and is it normal for activity to slow down and still be fermenting? I kept a sample of the wort to check my gravity and it went from 1.060 OG to 1.024. The instructions said it should end up at 1.014 so not quit there yet.

The color is not quit what i expected either I was expecting almost black well it is like a dark brown, is this normal as well?

need some advice
 
Yeah what I did was after i pitched the yeast I kept a sample in a beer bottle to check my gravity. Its exposed to air but i think it will still give accurate gravity readings.
 
Reading everyones bad experience stories, I'm second guessing trying this kit. I have never brewed before. I have some buddies coming over this weekend for brew day and was thinking about this kit. Would it be ok to try this recipe but use different yeast like the Wyeast 1028 or 1084?
 
US-05 is a great dry yeast. I suggest using that and maybe just in case, use some yeast nutrient. I also suggest just sprinkling it on the cooled wort as apposed to re-hydrating the yeast prior to pitching. Make sure you also aerate the cooled wort very well.
 
I made the brewers best milk stout on the 12/30 & so far so good. I did make a starter plus transfer the wort between my brewpot and fermenter several times before pitching. My OG was 1.052 and dropped to 1.020 in 9 days. The color was almost black so I'm not sure why it would appear brown.I have mine in a secondary with vanilla extract conditioning. I did not sample it when racking to the secondary but it smelled delicious.
 
I bottled this batch this past weekend and the sample was very good for warm flat beer. I will update again once the beer is ready.
 
I had my first beer from this batch and I am very pleased. There was a very nice light brown head from the pour with good overall mouthfeel. It was a smooth drinking beer with a good aroma. I added about 3 tbsp of vanilla extract to the secondary and it provides a subtle flavor to the beer.
 
Buckeye .. did you use the entire 5oz of priming sugar. I read that if you like to carb to style it should be around 3oz. So that is what I did. I am hoping I get enough carbonation :confused: ... Either way the sample was good flat so it wont be a total loss if it is somewhat lightly carbed.
 
I read that if you like to carb to style it should be around 3oz.

Not sure about those numbers. I've got the same Brewer's Best kit in secondary right now, so I'll be bottling it soon. Beer smith and every other resource I've found say it should be between 4.1 and 4.4 oz of priming sugar for a 5 - 5.2 gal batch to get to the 2.3-2.4 vols of CO2 that BJCP style guidelines and other books recommend.

Using only 3oz for a 5 gal bottling batch will result in only 1.9 vols.

Of course, everything's to taste, but I'm trying to achieve something that my friends and I will recognize based on other popular sweet stouts.
 
Sounds like the yeast is slowing down due to the lower temps. My recommendation is to keep it in the primary, and move it to a warmer location (68 - 72 degrees) you might even jostle it a bit to get some yeast back in suspension... but warming it should re-activate the yeast and finish off just fine in a week or two. As for secondary... its a stout, no need to secondary it, just leave it in primary and check the gravity ever 2 - 3 days till you reach your target FG and then bottle. Good luck!

I have the same issue with the same kit. I was fermenting in the mid to low 60's and checked it yesterday after 3 weeks, at 1.030. I brought the temp in my ferm chamber (deep freeze with a controller) to 70 and jostled the bucket.

Question is would it be good to sanitize my stirrer and dig into the yeast cake to really mix it up? Not vigorously to oxygenate it (not desired at this point right) but to physically dig the yeast cake off the bottom?
 
Well I checked the gravity yesterday after a week of 70 degrees and its gone down to about 1.028 but still not in range. This milk stout is already sweet so I really want it to finish fermenting as much as possible. I decided to repitch so yesterday I sprinkled a pack of S-05 I had. Anyone care to comment on if this was a good or bad idea and what the pros and cons of the effects will be?
 
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