About 3 weeks ago, I brewed a Belgian Dark Strong ale, pitching it with Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II. The brew day did not go perfectly:
Possible reasons for the discrepancy in OG include not mashing the Dark Munich, overfilling the carboy past 5 gallons, and a hydrometer that grows more suspect by the day.
Yeast was old, but stepped through three different starters and appeared healthy. After pitching at 68 degrees, lag was about 12 hours, but then fermentation took off like a shot. Nearly a half-gallon of blow-off came out of the carboy! After around 4 days fermentation appeared to be slowing, so I raised the ambient air temperature as best I could to around 72 degrees F. Fermentation appeared to stop after 7 days, at a gravity of 1.026. It has stayed at that gravity +/- 1 point for the past two weeks.
I can't figure out if this fermentation is stuck or not. Hopville says I should expect my FG to be around 1.024, but that's from the OG of 1.095. However, if the low measured OG really can be explained by overfilling and the lack of a mash (removing the Munich and setting batch size to 6 gallons produces 1.076 estimated OG) then my FG is estimated to be more like 1.019. This will bottle condition, and I don't want bombs if the bottling yeast decide to finish the job that the primary yeast couldn't.
Anyone seen something similar from this yeast? I do have some reserved that I can repitch with, but don't know if it would be futile. Other advice? My next opportunity to pitch this onto a cake from another brew won't come for another week, at the earliest.
- I mistook Munich 20L for CaraMunich, and only steeped it at 150 for 30 minutes. Maybe some conversion happened, but how much is up for debate.
- My homemade Candi Sugar (rocks) did a fine job of sticking to the bottom of the kettle.
- My OG was measured to be 1.076, compared to an estimated 1.095.
Possible reasons for the discrepancy in OG include not mashing the Dark Munich, overfilling the carboy past 5 gallons, and a hydrometer that grows more suspect by the day.
Yeast was old, but stepped through three different starters and appeared healthy. After pitching at 68 degrees, lag was about 12 hours, but then fermentation took off like a shot. Nearly a half-gallon of blow-off came out of the carboy! After around 4 days fermentation appeared to be slowing, so I raised the ambient air temperature as best I could to around 72 degrees F. Fermentation appeared to stop after 7 days, at a gravity of 1.026. It has stayed at that gravity +/- 1 point for the past two weeks.
I can't figure out if this fermentation is stuck or not. Hopville says I should expect my FG to be around 1.024, but that's from the OG of 1.095. However, if the low measured OG really can be explained by overfilling and the lack of a mash (removing the Munich and setting batch size to 6 gallons produces 1.076 estimated OG) then my FG is estimated to be more like 1.019. This will bottle condition, and I don't want bombs if the bottling yeast decide to finish the job that the primary yeast couldn't.
Anyone seen something similar from this yeast? I do have some reserved that I can repitch with, but don't know if it would be futile. Other advice? My next opportunity to pitch this onto a cake from another brew won't come for another week, at the earliest.
