Low OG and Stuck Fermentation advice? Thanks

Hi,
First thanks for your input/advice.

This was my recipe
17.6 pounds of Pale Ale malt
17 gallons of water (I usually do 1 to 1 ratio but have been told lately that might be to low though it has not been an issue in the past).

System is a Sabco Brewmagic if it matters

1 hour rest at 162F for the primary
then 2nd runnings at 45 min at 170F

boiled for 1 hour, with 2 pounds of honey added at the 30 min mark

Ended up with just under 15 gallons of wort at OG of 1.034

It has been in the Ferm tank for 13 days as of today and seems stuck at 1.024

I figured it got to cold so I stirred it with a sterile spoon to get the yeast back in solution and warmed up the room and tank overnight to 70F. The operational temp of the yeast is 59F-75F.

Any suggestions on how to:

1: boost the gravity==> alcohol since right now its on track for 3% if I can get it down to 1.007 but I would really like ti to get to around 5%

2: get the fermentation unstuck while accomplishing #1.

I live in south america so I can't just run down to the local home brew supplier or pick up a bottle of barley wine to toss in.... options are working with honey, I do have some caramel malt but not thinking that will help with fermentable sugars.

Thanks so much for reading and your advice

Personally I would accept that you have a very weak beer. Bottle as much as you can and brew a 7% beer, then bottle that. Open a bottle of each at a time and blend in a jug.

Are you certain your FG reading is accurate? Are you using a good yeast?

BOBTHEukBREWER said:

Personally I would accept that you have a very weak beer. Bottle as much as you can and brew a 7% beer, then bottle that. Open a bottle of each at a time and blend in a jug.

Are you certain your FG reading is accurate? Are you using a good yeast?

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I only have kegs so I was thinking maybe secondary fermentation in a keg with honey added to kick it up a notch?

I an sure on the FG as I as using a refractometer and benchmark it with distilled water prior to each test to zero it out.

The only yeast I can get here is what I bring in, Safale US-05 which I ran for 24hrs in wort with a little dry yeast nutrient for a starter, it was about 1/2 liter of yeast that I pitched, it did foam up nicely in the first 24 hours in the ferm tank but then fizzled out.

Did you mash at the high end eg 69-70 deg C possibly - is your thermometer accurate?

162 F is 72 deg C way too hot.

BOBTHEukBREWER said:

Did you mash at the high end eg 69-70 deg C possibly - is your thermometer accurate?

162 F is 72 deg C way too hot.

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I've always heard 160 as the mash ceiling as well and haven't heard of a lot of people even being that high. Mid 150's is about as high as most people seem to go. I think Lagunitas uses something like 158 and that is about the highest I've seen.

That could be the problem, going to high on the mash? could that negatively affect the OG?

The high temperature will cause the enzymes to denature and result in a lower fementability to the wort, which could partially explain your high final gravity number. However, you say you are measuring final gravity with a calibrated refractometer. Are you also doing the necessary conversion for the final gravity taking into account the alcohol in the beer? You can't directly measure final gravity with a refractometer without using the conversion formula.

Also, is 1.034 you pre boil or post boil gravity?

AH. I did not know about that calculation! Is there an online calc for that or manual? I started when i pitched the yeast at 1.034 then after 13 days its stuck at 1.024. This was with no additional calculations just straight test w/ refractometer I think it got to cold so i warmed it up to 70F and poured in 2lb of sterilized honey and gave it a stir. Now waiting

Shooter said:

Also, is 1.034 you pre boil or post boil gravity?

Click to expand...

That was post boil gravity

CHayes said:

AH. I did not know about that calculation! Is there an online calc for that or manual?

Click to expand...

There are several, most require a Brix reading. Here's one:

http://seanterrill.com/2012/01/06/refractometer-calculator/

Your actual gravity is probably around 1.018 or 1.019 right now with the correction factor. Which is still high.

I use the online calc at brewheads to convert the brix to specific gravity but running the numbers I had.


Original RI (°Bx): 9
Final RI (°Bx): 6
Wort correction factor: (Default: 1.040)
Original Gravity: 1.0345 (8.65°P)
Estimated Final Gravity: 1.0148 (3.77°P)
Alcohol by Volume: 2.5% (2% ABW)


So is the wort correction factor always 1.040?
Not being a math person, the online calcs are a lifesaver! so thanks for that!