1.021 FG on Milk Stout too High? OG 1.051

Hi all,

A couple of weeks ago I brewed Northern Brewer's Chocolate Milk Stout. The OG was 1.051. A week ago I had my dad check the gravity (I'm in CO the beer and he are in NE) and it was at 1.021. I figured that this meant that the fermentation stalled out. So, I had him increase the temp in the room a little bit and swirl it to re-suspend the yeast. A couple days later he checked again and it hadn't gone down. We swirled and checked a couple days later again and it hadn't changed. I got on here to review the normal stuck fermentation threads when I saw something about some styles being OK at a higher FG because they're supposed to be kind of sweet?

Do I need to take some further measures to bring the gravity down? Or, because of the use of lactose, is the FG supposed to be higher? If I do need to bring it down more, what can I try to achieve that now that swirling hasn't worked?

The lactose is going to add unfermentable sugars to the wort, increasing the FG. IMO, 1.021 is too high of a FG for 1.051 beer, but it is a milk stout. I would have wanted a higher OG.

I don't think there is a way to make it drop significantly more. But others may chime in.

What temp. is it at and how long has it been fermenting for?

Just looking at the recipes here on the forum, there are several that aren't far off your numbers.

Left Hand Milk Stout Clone - OG is 1.062 (higher than yours by a bit), FG is 1.022.
Milk Oatmeal Stout - OG is 1.052 (almost exactly your OG), FG is 1.024 (the oatmeal likely gives it more unfermentables)
Mammy's Sweet Milk Stout - OG is 1.058 (not quite as high, but still a bit higher), FG is 1.022.

I'd say that your scenario is perfectly normal.

I believe the FG is in style. I would have I would have up'd the OG.

Is a chocolate milk and sweet stout style guidelines the same?
If it is, your FG is within style. Your ABV% will be a bit lower, but you should be fine.
Lactose is keeping your FG high. Nothing you can do about it now.

From BJCP fort a sweet stout:
OG - 1.044 to 1.06
FG - 1.012 to 1.024
ABV% - 4 to 6
IBU - 20 to 40
SRM - 30 to 40

All - thanks for the replies.

Since it was a kit from NB I didn't think twice about the OG, other than it being right on with what they said it should be. Its been done fermenting for about two weeks now. It was fermented at around 70ish degrees because of hotter-than-normal days for this time of year. After most of the fermentation was complete the weather outside cooled off and it sat at around 65 degrees until we discovered it was still at 1.021. At that point we raised the temp in the room for the swirling attempts to around 72.

I usually let my ales condition in the carboy for 3 weeks after fermentation completing. I'm planning on letting this one condition for a couple weeks longer than that since its a little bigger beer than I've done before. At this point, it looks like the higher FG is within guidelines. I may email NB and see what they think. It makes sense with the lactose in it though. I do wish it had a little higher end ABV% however.

Anybody have recommendations on how much priming sugar to use at bottling time for this style of beer? They shouldn't be quite as carbonated as as most of the other ales, right?

I would never say not to let a beer sit in primary for longer, but 1.050 beer is not really that big, in the grand scheme of things. I would say that's about average for most people, myself included. I think that your beer is definitely done, considering that it was extract as well as having a pound of lactose in it.

I think that it's nice to have a sessionable ale around, and I recently made a smoked porter that comes in at about 4%, with an FG of 1.020, so it's not unheard of. Basically, after 3+ weeks, you have nothing to worry about. I wouldn't swirl it anymore for fear of oxidizing it at this point.

This is a nice priming sugar calculator that I like to use, it even has a pulldown menu for the volumes of CO2 according to style: http://kotmf.com/tools/prime.php

For the priming sugar, just use between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup (3/4 is the standard for 5 gal). If you end up with only 4.5 gal of beer to bottle, compensate the priming sugar for that. Yes, the beer shouldn't have a head on it like an IPA or pale ale.

Now that you are familiar with the kit you can make your one "kit" by buying the ingredients separate and boosting the malt extract you add to increase the OG, say to 1.060. Then your beer will have the %abv you are looking for. Other than that, your beer sounds like it will be a great session ale.

About the conditioning. This beer isn't "big" at all, so I would wait one week after your last "swirl" to rack it to the bottling bucket, then let the conditioning and carbonating happen simultaneously in the bottle. Waiting about 3 weeks after bottling to drink will be plenty (but do sneak a few along the way to gauge how it changes over those few weeks). Wait the week after the last swirling so the yeast will re-settle and there won't be a ton of yeast in suspension. The rest of the yeast in suspension will slowly fall out while in the bottle. After fully carbonated, I would chill the beers to speed up the yeast settling.

That priming sugar calculator is awesome! I'll be using that a lot in the future.

As far as the conditioning period for this beer, I'm not going back to NE until Nov. 21st...so its going to condition until then

I realize that it isn't a huge beer. But it, hopefully, has more flavor complexity than beers that I've done in the past. So I figured that letting it condition for an extended period of time can only help everything get better. I've always taken my time regarding the conditioning on all of my beers. This one isn't any different, although it will be the longest that I've conditioned (other than my lagers). I also always wait the full 3 weeks after bottling before I start drinking. I also have one of them at the 1,2,3 week marks to see how it is changing along the way.

Use 4.27 ounces of corn sugar/priming sugar/dextrose. Since most digital scales only increment the weight by .05, go with 4.25 or 4.3 if yours can't accurately measure 4.27.

If you're wondering where I got that number, I got it from the priming calculator linked earlier by devilishprune. Input these values:

Desired volumes of CO2 - 2.4 (this is the max given by the style guidelines)
Beer temperature - 72 (this is as hot as your beer got according to you)
Beer volume - 5 gal (if you get less out of your fermenter you'll have to adjust this)

The result is 4.27 ounces of corn sugar. Regarding the temperature, the consensus around here has been to use the highest temperature the beer reached after primary fermentation ended.

That's the exact number I came up with. I ended up with exactly 5 gal on the wit I bottled this weekend, fingers crossed its the same for the stout.

This calculator really would have come in handy last year when I brewed a spiced pumpkin ale that I only ended up with 4 gallons on. I couldn't get a definitive answer anywhere on how much sugar to use.

neb_brewer said:

This calculator really would have come in handy last year when I brewed a spiced pumpkin ale that I only ended up with 4 gallons on. I couldn't get a definitive answer anywhere on how much sugar to use.

Click to expand...

Sorry to hear that! Well, these calculators are quite useful and have always worked well for me no matter the beer. You shouldn't have to wonder again!

You should look into brewing software like Beersmith in the future. In my opinion, it isn't very useful for kits where mostly everything is mapped out for you. But, if you start working with your own recipes it has a lot of features that you'll find useful. One of them is a carbing calculator right on the screen where you input your recipe.

Looks like you already got it answered. That was the 2nd kit I did from NB, and it ended up right around there too - 1020 - 1022.
I am pretty sure that is due to the lactose addition; I think I only kept it in primary for two weeks but I'd have to see if I kept notes. I haven't worried too much about it with the extract kits so far.