1.030 for the last 3 days :(

I've got a sweet stout that I brewed on Monday, OG of 1.055. I checked the gravity Thursday and it was 1.030. I just checked it today and it's the same HALP! Do I have 5 gallons of syrup? My target gravity was 1.022, should I just bottle and be happy? Why is my attenuation so low? Here's the recipe I used.


7lbs LME
1lb Lactose
1lb Black Patent Malt
12oz Crystal 80 Malt
8oz Light Chocolate Malt
8oz White Sugar
2oz Kent Goldings 5%
WLP005 started to 2L, pitched half (probably should have pitched all)

Fermented at 68* since Monday.

What was your mash temp?

binkman said:

What was your mash temp?

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I extract/steeped grain.

Give it more time. It has only been less than a week. Let the yeast do it's job.

beergolf said:

Give it more time. It has only been less than a week. Let the yeast do it's job.

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IMO, if you haven't eaten a single gravity point in three days, you're sleeping on the job!

The only think I can think is that either the yeast wasn't healthy when you pitched it or there weren't enough nutrients or oxygen in the wort. Did you aerate well when you pitched the yeast? If not, give it a shake. If you did, go out and get yourself some yeast nutrient and yeast energizer. Follow the directions on the bottles for the appropriate amounts per unit volume and dissolve them in a little bit of boiled, cooled water, then pitch it in there. If there are any sugars still in there and the yeast are missing some nutrients that should get them going again.

Because you are using extract, the only thing I can think of going wrong is that they run out of nutrients. Sometimes extracts are a little lacking in some things. Also, what kind of water did you use? If you used still water, there's a problem, too few nutrients. If you used municipal tap water the chlorine could possibly be an issue, but if the yeast started okay, I wouldn't expect that to stop them prematurely. My guess is some energizer and nutrient might do the trick, assuming there are still unfermented sugars in there.

Whatever you do, don't bottle it until you are sure it's done fermenting. If there are unfermented sugars, adding more won't carb it up, and if the yeast DO restart, there will be a lot more sugar in there than you'd want for carbing and your bottles will explode.

If I were you, I'd get my hands on some nutrient and energizer and give it a few days. Don't do anything hasty.

RDWHAHB.

WLP005 should go lower than 1.022, I would think. I've had it finish at 75% for me pretty regularly. In any event, 1.030 is less than 40% attenuation. So those yeast have more work to do for sure.

By the way, I just did the math and your OG should have been more like 1.076. Since your using extract, even if you didn't extract ANY sugars from the steeping grains, you'd still end up with 1.065.

Given a starting OG of 1.076, which I expect is about right, 1.030 is still kinda high. I'd expect more like 1.024 from this yeast. Let it rest another week. It might actually be done, or it might be moving very slowly. Take a measurement after 7 days and see if it drops at all.

It's really difficult to take accurate gravity readings with extract unless you REALLY mix up the wort. The syrup tends to sit on the bottom of the fermenter and not dissolve evenly throughout the liquid for a while, so a reading taken after the boil is almost always far too low. I never had a good reading when I was making extract. My advice is not even to use your hydrometer if your making extract. Just follow the recipe, assume you've hit the OG and bottle it after 3-4 weeks, assuming you saw signs of a healthy fermentation and your FG is within 5-10 points of what you were expecting.

I bet your beer is done but give it at least 3 weeks from the brew date before you bottle just to be sure.

I second binkman. You may want to shake up your fermenter to get the yeast on the bottom back into suspension. A good healthy shaking a few times a day should help you out, in addition to nutrients. In any event, when it kicks back up let it be. If it doesn't And you decide to bottle it anyway, use less sugar. Maybe like .5 c or even a little less...

A pound of lactose will add about .007 to the final gravity. Which means your sweet stout, without the lactose would be at 1.023 or so. That seems about right to me with extract, especially if the yeast was underpitched and it seems like it was.

Wait a week. If it's still at 1.030, it's done.

I roused it a bit and bumped my temp up to around 70-71. I was hoping to bottle this week, as I'm gonna be moving =/ I'll take another reading tomorrow or monday and see if that did anything. Thanks for all the input, I really appreciate it =]