Very short ferment!

So, my father-in-law won a kit at a church auction, so we decided to boil it this weekend. We usually do ales or lagers, so this stout was a bit different. I've attached a picture of the instructions and the ingredients provided. What I'm confused about, is that there was no sugar substance added to the mix anywhere. There was a mention of it in Step 4, but we searched high and low and couldn't find the sugar or amber or fructose or anything. The ingredients also didn't indicate there was any to be used. So we marched on, assuming the immense amount of grains created enough starch to make enough sugar to cause the yeast to ferment the sugar.

Anyway, sure enough, the next day we had some good action in the carboy, but it only lasted about 18 hours, and now the gunk on the top is nearly all gone and there's no action. Any suggestions on what we did wrong, or is this normal for a stout?? If normal, when should we bottle?

A stout is an ale, and brewed just like any other ale so it's not different than other beers that you made.

I don't know what kind of sugar substance you were looking for, though?

The recipe looks good from what I can see, but I can't see 'step 4' so I'm not sure what you mean.

funkerama said:

So, my father-in-law won a kit at a church auction, so we decided to boil it this weekend. We usually do ales or lagers, so this stout was a bit different. I've attached a picture of the instructions and the ingredients provided. What I'm confused about, is that there was no sugar substance added to the mix anywhere. There was a mention of it in Step 4, but we searched high and low and couldn't find the sugar or amber or fructose or anything. The ingredients also didn't indicate there was any to be used. So we marched on, assuming the immense amount of grains created enough starch to make enough sugar to cause the yeast to ferment the sugar.

Anyway, sure enough, the next day we had some good action in the carboy, but it only lasted about 18 hours, and now the gunk on the top is nearly all gone and there's no action. Any suggestions on what we did wrong, or is this normal for a stout?? If normal, when should we bottle?

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If you were looking for sugars, I'm guessing you usually do extract kits with DME/LME. It looks like you have instructions for all-grain and extract there. Any chance you followed extract instructions with an all-grain kit? If so, you sort of did a BIAB.

Well what was the OG? FG?

let it ride for at least 2 weeks. check the gravity a few days apart after 2 weeks to check for doneness. you sound like you are missing priming sugar. you'll need about 4 oz give or take depending on how much beer you are priming and how much carb you want.

blackbeer said:

let it ride for at least 2 weeks. check the gravity a few days apart after 2 weeks to check for doneness. you sound like you are missing priming sugar. you'll need about 4 oz give or take depending on how much beer you are priming and how much carb you want.

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I don't think it was the priming sugar. He was looking for the "sugar substance" to add to the boil as indicated by step 4 in the instructions. He is familiar with extract kits and didn't realize he had his hands on an all-grain kit. He mentioned the "immense amount of grains" so it sounds like he went ahead and steeped the whole thing. The OG will be pretty low because the instructions had him crank right through sacc rest temps.

OP, I would love to hear how you ended up steeping all those grains if this is what happened. BTW, you will have beer. It will just be low gravity.

A fast fermentation is likely due to high temperature in the fermenter. 5-10 degrees makes a huge difference. What was the temp of the actual beer during fermentation?

Also note that the temp will rise during the ferment. If you start a little high, it will soar higher as fermentation produces heat.

As others have mentioned, this was an All Grain kit. Instead of adding pre-mashed liquid or dry malt sugars you create them in the mash process.

The mash is a period of time, usually 60 minutes or so, where you keep the grain temperature at about 150F where enzymes convert starches in all that grain to the malt sugars you are used to. For this to work you need to:
1) crush the grains
2) hold that temperature within a few degrees of 150F.

If you did a normal steep of your grain, then the starches were not converted to sugars, and there wasn't much at all to ferment. This is what I'm guessing happened.

Why in the world would they include extract instructions in an all-grain kit?

Check out the front page if you want more information on the mash!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/all-grain-brewing-simplified-part1-process.html

Thanks folks...

This makes no sense. It's like you have instructions for both an all grain kit and an extract kit. What was your OG and how did you brew the kit?

Morebeer kits have an ingredient/instruction sheet that has all-grain on one side and extract on the other.

The base malt whether extract or all-grain is not shrink-wrapped with the rest of the kit but is instead packaged/shipped separately.