So I mashed in too hot..

and the fermentation stalled at about 1.031 due to the high content of unfermentables. In lieu of dumping the batch (blasphemy!) I racked it over grapes in a secondary to use the lambic yeasts on the fruit to break down the long chain sugars.

I'm fully expecting a slightly sour dry beer and realize it may be a complete drain-pour end-of-the-night special.

Anyone have experience with this/think it will work?

As a note: major airlock activity for the past 4 days and the grapes started floating (didn't expect this!)

Now you have an infected beer. The grapes are coated with wild yeast and bacteria. Given time I expect your beer will get very sour and funky.

Next time your mash is hot, just stir it until it cools to the proper temp. In some cases an ice cube or 3 will work wonders.

I fully expect to have a sour dry beer; I was just posting to see if anyone has experience in regulating how sour the beer gets, etc...

bostinbru said:

I fully expect to have a sour dry beer; I was just posting to see if anyone has experience in regulating how sour the beer gets, etc...

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It's hard to predict even when you know what types of bugs you used to infect the beer. In your case it's even harder to predict because you have no idea what's growing in there.

I'd set it aside and be patient. You will need to wait for the pelicle to form and then drop. Only then is it done. Some times these take a year or longer to finish.

Out of curiosity, what temp was your mash at? I had the same problem recently and I was somewhere between 165 and 167. I should have tried harder to bring it down (trying for 160).

I ended up at 1.030 and was hoping for 1.020. I don't suspect that my beer will be terrible at this FG since I was going for thick anyways.

I'm just curious at what temps you were mashing at.


Thanks

Haputanlas said:

Out of curiosity, what temp was your mash at? I had the same problem recently and I was somewhere between 165 and 167. I should have tried harder to bring it down (trying for 160).

I ended up at 1.030 and was hoping for 1.020. I don't suspect that my beer will be terrible at this FG since I was going for thick anyways.

I'm just curious at what temps you were mashing at.


Thanks

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Mashed in at about 190, got the grain bed to about 175-177 for an hour.

Wow,

What was your OG?

Cold water next time, cold water.

Wow is right... I'm surprised you didn't denature all your enzymes at those temps. Quick reading shows 180F to be about the point where amylase enzyme is completely denatured. I've found a nice sweet spot for most of my mashes is about 156F. I like my beers with a bit of a maltier finish and this leaves me with plenty of unfermentables without becoming an oversweet mess. If I'm looking for a drier finish, I'll mash longer (90+ min) at 148F.

As far as your experiment goes with the grapes, I think it should turn out fine. Like you said, probably a slightly sour, dry beer. The alcohol, yeast and hops present will help to keep down the worst of the bacteria at this point. (not saying you won't get something horrible, but...) Depending on the base style you were making, you might consider adding a little oak to the secondary to give it that wine barrel aged feel.

Terje

You might wind up with 5 gallons of malt vinegar. Which would actually be pretty cool for gifting to friends and family or just for keeping around the house.

I can tell you from experience that amylase enzymes work; it would have solved your problem. I get this stuff in powder form. I just did a stout that I mashed way too high and it ended at 1.030. I used a test jar, added 1/4 tsp AE to a cup of the beer, no additional yeast, and it started fermenting again. Hit 1.020 in 2 days.

I have added AE to both carboys of this stout. We'll see how it turns out, but I'd say it is a complete success already.

passedpawn said:

I can tell you from experience that amylase enzymes work; it would have solved your problem. I get this stuff in powder form. I just did a stout that I mashed way too high and it ended at 1.030. I used a test jar, added 1/4 tsp AE, no additional yeast, and it started fermenting again. Hit 1.020 in 2 days.

I have added AE to both carboys of this stout. We'll see how it turns out, but I'd say it is a complete success already.

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Damn, if that's true I should try that on my current batch. I would love to go from 1.030 to 1.020.

I'll give that a shot and let you guys know how it goes for me.

Interesting,

I'm looking at this link from Austin Homebrew Supply about AE:
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=447

This talks about using it during the mash and you are talking about using it during fermentation.

Do you just add the AE directly while in the fermenter? Or did you do something to prep it?

Haputanlas said:

Interesting,

I'm looking at this link from Austin Homebrew Supply about AE:
http://www.austinhomebrew.com/product_info.php?products_id=447

This talks about using it during the mash and you are talking about using it during fermentation.

Do you just add the AE directly while in the fermenter? Or did you do something to prep it?

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You don't need it during the mash because the mash contains all the enzymes you need.

Give the mash the right temps, and time, and it will get the job done. But if you mash too high, the enzymes get denatured before they finish. That's what happened to me. I do know better, but my system is so dialed in now confused that I don't even check the temp. By the time I was ready for sparging, I'd permanently denatured those enzymes.

So, to answer your question, just dump the powder into the fermentor. DO NOT BOIL. DO NOT HEAT. I'm using 2 tsp per carboy.

There is no need to add further yeast, even for lagers. Just be sure that the fermentation is complete before you bottle.

BTW, this is not the same thing as adding Beano, which I would not recommend.

That's awesome. Learn something new every day.

Can't wait to give this a shot.

Thanks again. This came at the perfect time and I wasn't actually even looking for this.

Hap, you can add the amylase directly to the fermenter in the case of a stuck fermentation. I think AHS recommends it in the mash to help create a more fermentable wortand aid in full conversion if your recipe has a high amount of specialty grains that aren't self converting. One thing to keep in mind when adding directly to the fermenter is that it does have the ability to really dry out your beer if used in too large a dose.

Terje

I'll be using this on a 3 gallon batch that's stuck at 1.030 and I want it to go to 1.020 (OG was 1.090). Any suggestions for the amount?

Stratotankard said:

One thing to keep in mind when adding directly to the fermenter is that it does have the ability to really dry out your beer if used in too large a dose.

Terje

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This might be true. That is why the test jar at room temp is a fine way to get to the truth. I'd recommend taking a sample of the high-OG beer, put it in a jar, add a bit of AE, and wait a day or two. Put foil over the top of the jar.

Check your gravity daily by dumping into your hydro, then back to the jar. You'll know when it is done.

Haputanlas said:

I'll be using this on a 3 gallon batch that's stuck at 1.030 and I want it to go to 1.020 (OG was 1.090). Any suggestions for the amount?

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Going out to buy 1oz of this stuff today. Anybody have any good suggestions on how much I should actually use? I don't want to over do it.

how or when do the enzymes stop working. In a mash the enzymes stop working when you boil them. If you add enzymes to the fermenter when or how do they stop working. What keeps the beer from loosing ALL it's dextrines and body?

maida7 said:

how or when do the enzymes stop working. In a mash the enzymes stop working when you boil them. If you add enzymes to the fermenter when or how do they stop working. What keeps the beer from loosing ALL it's dextrines and body?

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That's a good question. My test jar, which was loaded with a sample of the 1.030, is now down to 1.017. That's 5 days after I added AE to it.

Fortunately, this beer I'm working on had a lot of oatmeal in it. I'm assuming o) that the beta-glucans in from the oatmeal will not be further broken down by the AE, and so maybe I'll retain some body.

Kaiser did some fermentability experiments. Low mash temps and very long mashes (> 3 hrs) resulted in close to 90% fermentability. So, I'd say that is the upper limit of the AE. So, if you started with a 1.060 beer, it might be able to get down to 1.006. Hmmm... maybe I should have left mine at 1.030.

Haputanlas said:

Going out to buy 1oz of this stuff today. Anybody have any good suggestions on how much I should actually use? I don't want to over do it.

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I ended up adding 2 tsp per carboy. I think I had 2 ounces, and I'd say I used about half of it. So, maybe there are 3 or 4 tsp per ounce.

I added 1 tsp to my 3 gallons about 4 hours ago. I already see activity!

Hopefully it doesn't go too far though. I'm hoping that I finish in the range of 1.015 to 1.020.

Thanks again for all your help.

AE will keep going until all you have left are alpha-limit dextrins. You'll retain some body, but it'll be drier than if you'd altered your mash or grain bill. It'd be like doing a very long rest at 152*. AE won't break down any proteins like beta-glucans,

So I'm kind of concerned about how active this seems to be. The beer is still going since yesterday. I have been out of town and my wife is watching over it.

It seems to me that it probably has already gone too far. If I want to stop this, could I pasteurize and stop the process? Or should I just wait it out and hope that it doesn't go below 1.010? If it goes that low, I will consider it ruined.

I think I would hate it that dry.

The only way to stop it at this point is to pasteurize it or filter the yeast out. I'd cold crash and rack to secondary before attempting to pasteurize, I'm not sure how a bunch of dead yeast would affect the flavor if they're all still in suspension when you kill them.

My test jar of 1.030 "stuck" wort seems to have bottomed out at 1.013. (this, after i added AE to it). OG of 1.063.

I can live with that.

Here's a link to a thread where I started to document my amylase enzymes experiment:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/escape-stuck-fermentation-mountain-ae-rescue-212926/#post2491360

I wanted to follow up and let you guys know that the final gravity ended up being right at 1.020! Couldn't have worked out more perfect.

Even though I should have tested the AE with a small sample first, things worked out perfect (got lucky).

Thanks again for the help.