What went wrong? FG too high!

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Steve973

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About 4 weeks ago, a friend and I attempted to brew a Duvel clone. Some of you may remember when I posted about it. We circulated while mashing, and our schedule was like this:

1.25 qt/lb
60 minutes @ 140
30 minutes @ 150
Mashout @ 170

The starting gravity was a little high at 1.090.

We used pils malt and dextrose made up 17% of fermentables. Now, at the 4 week mark, our gravity is at 1.030 and we were hoping for a FG of around 1.010 since we mashed for attenuation. We had 2 starters: 1 was cultured from Duvel bottles, and the other was White Labs Duvel yeast. My buddy even dropped an extra vial of the WL Duvel yeast into the fermenter between the 2 and 3 week mark to be sure the yeast was still viable, but that didn't seem to help.

Any input?

Thanks,
Steve
 
Steve973 said:
My buddy even dropped an extra vial of the WL Duvel yeast into the fermenter between the 2 and 3 week mark to be sure the yeast was still viable, but that didn't seem to help.

This doesn't really help because you are putting exhausted yeast into a wort void of vital nutrients (the initial pitch of yeast consumed all the O2 and amino acids). If you do that, you need to make starter to grow some fresh yeast and pitch the yeast sediment from that. This yeast should be more healty than the yeast from a vial or smack-pack

Now to your initial problem. Could the pH of the mash have been far off?

b/c you are looking for a highly fermented beer, you may want to try some Beano in the fermenter to fix the problem. Beano is an amylase enzyme preparation that you can find in the drug store.

Kai
 
I am the friend that Steve973 brewed with.

We did not check the PH of the water, but we did add Buffer 5.2 to the strike and sparge water.

As of 2/17/06 the gravity is only at 1.030 and bubbles are occuring every 20-30 seconds. We were hoping for a gravity of around 1.010 but its been over 4 weeks now.

Do you really think adding amylase enzyme at this point will help any.

Thanks,
Jaime
 
Not that this will help you now, but...

Did you aerate it *really* well? When I brew big, I bring over a couple of friends and we aerate it in shifts (shaking it in the primary violently), for about 18 minutes total. I can get away with pitching right out of the vial--no starter, strong fermentations.

Good luck with saving your batch. It sounds like it'll be a good one.
 
We arated with oxygen during the transfer to the fermentor, but we probbaly didn't do nearly enough (5-10 mins).

Also, consider that is dropped 40 points in the first five days (1.090 - 1.050) but since then (almost 4 weeks) it has only dopped 20 more points to 1.030.

Any suggestion as to what I can do now to get it at least below 1.020? I'm currently seeing bubbles once every 20-30 seconds, but at the rate its going I may have to wait another month!

Thanks
 
One bubble per 20-30 seconds probably means it's not fermenting, but degassing naturally as any carbonated liquid would do. Sounds like it's done to me.

I would take Kaiser's advice and add a few Beano. I did this on a batch that wouldn't ferment anymore and it worked great. Went from 1.03 to 1.012 in a couple of weeks.
 
I had a Guinness clone that stopped @ 1.025, I added 2 beano to 5 gallons and kegged it 2 weeks later @ 1.010. So 4 should be safe. Although your SG was much higher than my Guinness.
 
jvetter said:
We arated with oxygen during the transfer to the fermentor, but we probbaly didn't do nearly enough (5-10 mins).
With pure O2, 2-3 minutes is all you need.

At what temp are you fermenting this? Belgian yeasts can go quite warm.

Some have reported that gently stirring the yeast back into suspention helps.
 
The room has been consitently 70-75, but I have no idea what the beer is at.

I have a thermowell stopper, thermawrap and ETC comming so I can control it better, but it may be too little too late.
 
Just for the record -

The new vial of yeast wasn't simply chucked into the fermenter. Jaime also added yeast energizer along with it. For the people that suggested Beano, could you explain what this actually does for a stuck fermentation?
 
Beano breaks down the unfermentables into simpler sugars that the yeast can digest and turn into alcohol. I've heard it works really really well, sometimes a little too well, resulting in a dry beer. I would start with just two rather than four and see how that goes, just to be safe.
 
Ok, I guess it wouldn't hurt. But we mashed for attenuation, so it will surprise me if we got that many unfermentables in our wort. Thanks for the input, and we'll let you know what happens.
 
I'm haveing the same problem with my imperial stout stuck at around 1.030 from 1.083. I don't want to use beano as I used mollasses and want some of that sweetness to show but not 1.030 sweet. If I make a starter and throw some champaign yeast in the secondary how will that effecy my gravity?
 
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