Fermented 4 weeks - FG still WAY high(???)

Greetings,

I've browsed these forums for a while, and now, on my first ever batch, have encountered a problem with which i need some experienced advice. Here's the rundown:

Imperial Stout with original gravity of 1.075 (target final gravity 1.015 - 1.017)
Fermented 6 days in food-grade plastic bucket w/ airlock - visible fermentation
Siphoned, filtered and transferred to glass carboy - 13 days secondary fermentation
While transferring to bottling bucket (after washing, rinsing and sanitizing ~50 bomber bottles from the bar i work at), we took our final gravity check just to make sure....

1.039....after nearly 3 weeks. This is in Gainesville, FL....we had a cold front or two, but for the most part its 75 - 80 during the day and 50 - 55 most nights. It was stored in an interior closet.

Everything was religiously sanitized with Five-Star/Io-Star iodine solution, properly diluted.

This was one week ago. On the advice of the local homebrew store (who I am increasingly coming to doubt), I siphoned to a bucket, cleaned and sanitized the carboy, siphoned back and pitched more yeast. Tonight, 6 days later, the gravity has not made a noticeable change.

I simply do not know what to do from this point. The warm, uncarbonated product tastes pretty decent (we sampled the contents of the hydrometer after checking gravity). Is there any way to continue fermentation? Or do I bottle?

An imperial stout with ~4.5% ABV is not an imperial stout at all....

Recipe? Mash schedule?

The temp fluctuations probably freaked the yeast out. I would've just roused the original yeast a few times instead of dumping/repitching. When you pitched the new yeast, did you re-aerate?

9.90 Malt extract

14 oz british chocolate malt
8oz british roasted barley
4oz british black patent
12oz carapils
all 30min steep @ 155 - 160

willamette hops: 2.5oz 60min 1oz 15min 1oz 5 min

Cooper's Yeast


By temp fluctuations, do you mean between night and day? How can that be prevented?

What do you mean by "roused?"

Each time we siphoned, it seemed to aerate quite a bit...lots of foam. After re-pitched, we also gave a strong stir with the siphon. We had sediment on the bottom of the carboy both times (even though the gravity has not changed much after re-pitching).

BrewGator said:

Greetings,


Fermented 6 days in food-grade plastic bucket w/ airlock - visible fermentation
Siphoned, filtered and transferred to glass carboy - 13 days secondary fermentation
While transferring to bottling bucket.......we took our final gravity check just to make sure....

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heres your problem-- you waited to check gravity until after you had filtered your beer... your beer wasnt done.


is that when you repitched?

i would just leave it alone for a while.. dont bottle, see if the repitch of yeast can adapt to your beer, and pick up the fermentation.

maybe someone with more experience can suggest a better way to prep your repitch-- since you arent pitching it into wort at this point.

oh, and if you are bottling I dont think you should be filtering your beer.

Putting the fermenter in a water bath will help keep the temp more constant. I bought a cheapo cooler from target for $20 and cut a hole in the lid for my bucket. My tap water is pretty cold this time of year, so I just empty some water and add more cold water when the temp gets too high. I'll gain about 4-5 degrees over a 12 hour period.

Rousing just means stirring up the yeast that settles on the bottom. You can do this by gently rocking the bucket.

Malt extract isn't terribly fermentable, and you have a fair amount of specialty grains. I'd guess your FG would be more like 1.020-1.025.

When you pitched more yeast, how did you do it? I'd make a 2L starter first and then pitch. You want lots of healthy, active yeast.

When I say filtered, I mean I simply poured the siphon through the mesh that came with the funnel in the kit. I did this between my primary and secondary fermentation. Did I effectively end the fermentation by doing that?

And when I pitched the yeast (either time) I simply poured it into the wort/carboy. I've heard of methods for prepping yeast, but my recipe didn't really specify any method....

Nateo said:

Putting the fermenter in a water bath will help keep the temp more constant. I bought a cheapo cooler from target for $20 and cut a hole in the lid for my bucket. My tap water is pretty cold this time of year, so I just empty some water and add more cold water when the temp gets too high. I'll gain about 4-5 degrees over a 12 hour period.

Rousing just means stirring up the yeast that settles on the bottom. You can do this by gently rocking the bucket.

Malt extract isn't terribly fermentable, and you have a fair amount of specialty grains. I'd guess your FG would be more like 1.020-1.025.

When you pitched more yeast, how did you do it? I'd make a 2L starter first and then pitch. You want lots of healthy, active yeast.

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second the water bath to help buffer temp changes.

heres a good link to read BrewGator. might help you now... and later.

CLICK HERE

BrewGator said:

When I say filtered, I mean I simply poured the siphon through the mesh that came with the funnel in the kit. I did this between my primary and secondary fermentation. Did I effectively end the fermentation by doing that?

And when I pitched the yeast (either time) I simply poured it into the wort/carboy. I've heard of methods for prepping yeast, but my recipe didn't really specify any method....

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I certainly dont mean to be dissrespectful, but I think you need to do some more research on process before your next brew... everything seems out of place.

You shouldnt be pouring your racked beer through the colander, that aerates it (you only want to aerate your cooled wort before you pitch yeast).

here is an abridged chronology of the proper process.

1. make wort (extract, PM, or AG)
2. boil and add hops per schedule
__________________________SANITATION IMPORTANT FROM HERE ON
3. cool wort
4--- TAKE GRAVITY READING
5. rack/pour/dump/move/transfer your wort into the fermenter, preferably with some sort of aeration.
6. pitch yeast
________________________AVOID AGITATION OF BEER FROM HERE ON
7. exercise lots of patience while the yeast turns your wort into beer (how long this takes this will vary greatly, but you are likely to cause more trouble erring on the early side vs. the late side).
8.When you suspect beer may be done---TAKE GRAVITY READING , then, take consecutive readings until they stabilize and remain unchanged for 3 days.... NOW you are ready to rack to secondary, keg, or bottle.
9. Rack to secondary (if indicated) and exercise more patience (if indicated).
10. Rack to bottling bucket with priming sugar (follow appropriate priming sugary preparatory instructions).
11. bottle

it looks like your steps were all out of order... so, Id do some more reading/research. Then write out your plan before your next brew day.. follow it closely.

hope that helps.

Ok, so if I mistakenly aerated between fermentations, is there any way to save this batch? Will pitching even more yeast into the settled (i.e. not aerated) carboy if I've have no change in gravity in a week? Or do I bottle and risk an explosion?

BrewGator said:

Imperial Stout with original gravity of 1.075 (target final gravity 1.015 - 1.017)

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With malt extract at that high of an OG, you "probably" shouldn't expect to get that low with your FG. You might get that low, but I wouldn't be shocked to see an FG of 1.025 or so.

BrewGator said:

Fermented 6 days in food-grade plastic bucket w/ airlock - visible fermentation

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Was there something in the ambient environment that changed as far as temperatures etc when visible fermentation stopped? Like did the temperature of the fermenter fall below say 62F when it had been 68F (just an example, those temps don't necessarily mean a lot)?

BrewGator said:

Siphoned, filtered and transferred to glass carboy - 13 days secondary fermentation

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Filtering with a screen won't filter out your yeast, so you wouldn't have halted fermentation by filtering it. That said, you don't need to filter it when you transfer it. Just try to pick up as little of the trub as possible when you're racking.

BrewGator said:

While transferring to bottling bucket (after washing, rinsing and sanitizing ~50 bomber bottles from the bar i work at), we took our final gravity check just to make sure....

Click to expand...

At least they're already cleaned and rinsed right? You'll still have to sanitize again though.

BrewGator said:

1.039....after nearly 3 weeks. This is in Gainesville, FL....we had a cold front or two, but for the most part its 75 - 80 during the day and 50 - 55 most nights. It was stored in an interior closet.

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The outside weather (except for possibly barometric pressure) doesn't matter... What matters is the temperature your fermenter is subjected to. Are those the temps that your fermenter is subjected to? I doubt it, but if so no wonder you had a troubled fermentation. Temperature is one of the most important variables to proper fermentation. Yeast ferment differently at different temperatures, and temperature swings are not good.

BrewGator said:

This was one week ago. On the advice of the local homebrew store (who I am increasingly coming to doubt), I siphoned to a bucket, cleaned and sanitized the carboy, siphoned back and pitched more yeast. Tonight, 6 days later, the gravity has not made a noticeable change.

Click to expand...

There's no panacea for a stuck fermentation. Pitching new yeast is one of the options. That "Stuck Fermentation 101" link looked like a good guide to me.

BrewGator said:

I simply do not know what to do from this point. The warm, uncarbonated product tastes pretty decent (we sampled the contents of the hydrometer after checking gravity). Is there any way to continue fermentation? Or do I bottle?

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It's possible you won't get your FG any lower... you may end up trying to bottle this batch at that FG. If so it'll probably be fine, and if you do that it'd probably be wise to carbonate at a lower level (use a little less sugar) and put the bottles where if they blow up they won't destroy anything. If it tastes fine now, maybe you're golden.

BrewGator said:

An imperial stout with ~4.5% ABV is not an imperial stout at all....

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But it'll make a nice sweet stout if it tastes good now.

If youve already repitched yeast, I would really RDWHAHB... and give it some time. remember visible signs of fermentation can take up to 72 hrs to present.

I would tell myself not to touch it for 2 weeks. Just put it in the corner and dont fuss with it.... Then check gravity.

once your gravity is stable, then bottle.... dunno about bottling at 1039.. thats a bit high.

that said, someone else may have a better idea.

Frodo said:

With malt extract at that high of an OG, you "probably" shouldn't expect to get that low with your FG. You might get that low, but I wouldn't be shocked to see an FG of 1.025 or so.

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curious, why do you say this?

HItransplant said:

curious, why do you say this?

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When I was making extract batches, I'd usually get around 70% apparent attenuation. I knew a lot less about yeast back then, but I've always assumed since then that extract was less fermentable because it was mashed fairly high by the manufacturer.

HItransplant said:

If youve already repitched yeast, I would really RDWHAHB

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What does this stand for?

owned...and hilarious.

BrewGator said:

What does this stand for?

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I think you gotta look to the googles for the answer to that. Oh and I bet you haven't read Charlie Papazian's book The Joy of Homebrewing. Might want to check that one out, and take a gander at http://www.howtobrew.com/ if you haven't read that one either.

HItransplant said:

curious, why do you say this?

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LME in my experience does not finish low at all. Probably a combination of age and how it was produced.

EDIT: OP, you used 9.9 lb liquid malt extract (LME), right?

I use a lot of malt extract and have no problems getting good attenuation. Regularly get 80+ attenuation. When I calculate my attenuation I also remove any simple sugars that may have been used in the recipe so my attenuation numbers are for the malt sugars only.

I usually do a partial mash (about 5 lbs or approx half the mix), but times I do straight extract to save time.

I disagree with comments that it is not as fermentable as regular wort and you should expect a high FG.

Frodo said:

EDIT: OP, you used 9.9 lb liquid malt extract (LME), right?

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Correct.

Another question:

Do you usually re-hydrate dry yeast before you pitch it?

..and for those who asked, the temperature of the fermenter is 74 degrees...

I've never rehydrated dry yeast before pitching, and I've never had stuck fermentations.

Another way to help prevent such a wide swing in temps is when you put it in the water bath use an aquarium heater to keep that water at +65*F. They're cheap and easy.

BrewGator said:

Another question:

Do you usually re-hydrate dry yeast before you pitch it?

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I do whatever I can to optimize the number of healthy yeast and that's one of those things.

Have you checked your gravity again yet? Just wondering if it's come down any.

Hasn't there been numerous reports of Coopers Yeast stalling out before full attenuation?

Also, always leave your beer in primary for three weeks.

I checked the gravity on Sunday, almost a full week after re-pitching. It was still around 1.035+ I;m leaving for Thanksgiving today, so I'll reupdate next week when I get back.