Fermentation ended...And restarted?!

[Dadux]

Ok.
SO 10 days ago, at around 00:00 of the 12/10/2017 (12th oct for americans) I pitched the yeast in my 3rd and 4th batches of beer.
One was a darkish ale and i used Mangrove jacks M15 Empire Ale. Another was a more hop forward Vienna malt ale. I used M44 West coast.
Both were pitched slightly warmer than recommended (around 25ºC M15 and 28ºC for M44)
Lets focus on M15 for a while. It was bubbling so strongly next morning at 1 bubble per sec or more, just nonstop, all the turb which was a lot was being blown from the bottom and circulated through all the bucket. M44 took longer to speed up but the same happened. However in M15 things started to slow down after 24h and it ended up in a crawl after 5 days, all the turb was sedimented ina very compact layer.
SO i was happily hearing it burp onece every 10 minutes (M44 wasa bit faster) or so yestarday. Today i woke up and though "lets check gravity, maybe i can bottle in 4-5 days if its stable" but i started hearing more burping than usual. I blamed it on M44...Few hours later i decided why not check the gravity of M15... take oyt the sheet covering the bucket so no light hits it...the turb in the bottom is unsettling and distributing all over the buket again. I now realize the airlock is bubbling at a steady burp every 40s or so. Not much, but DEFINITELY some activity there that was not happening before. Now, The buckets are in a room with VERY constant temps, swinging from maybe 18 to 20ºC, all in the recommended range for this yeast, ALso M15 is know to be a fast starter but low/medium attenuation yeast (around 70%). THe bubbles seem to be rising from the bottom of the carboy every now and then and they are disturbing the sediment. The carboy has NOT been opened since the eyast was pitched. The airlock is full of water and has not dried or anything. EDIT: they also have not been moved. THe most i did was take out the sheet to see how much turb there was a couple of days ago, but that does not move/tilt/anything the carboys, and at that time everything was packed down tightly)

So question 1- Is this normal, or should i worry?
2- Should i do something? No real reason to open the carboy now and measure FG i guess...since its definitely not gonna stay stable i guess...
3- Why? Contamination? yeast mutated/was selected and cells with higher attenuation are fermenting now? or what the heck?

Thanks for any info and ADVICE, guys.

Another Edit: My first though was maybe something changed (temp, pressure, idk) and air was escaping from the bucket but that didnt mean fermentation. However, the M44 bucket has not changed a bit. Really slow bubbling at 1 every 6-7 minutes, no changes in sedimented turb or anything else.

 

[flars]

Haven't used these yeasts before so not familiar with their behavior. You are right to just give both beers more time. A SG reading now wouldn't mean much since activity seems to have renewed. Maybe take a SG reading in a week if activity slows and the beer begins to clear at the top.

 

[Kharnynb]

leave it to go for another week, likely cleaning up yeast byproducts now.

 

[Ashevillain]

Nothing wrong, no action needed for another week or so. PS 90% of the importance related to temperature has to do with pitching temp(arguable, but i believe it), and the first 48-72 hours of fermentation(undeniable).

For example I could take a yeast that is happiest at 60F, leave it there for 3-4 days and then ramp it up to 70 with little to no noticeable off flavors, the increased temperature will encourage complete fermentation, while decreasing temperature can slow it down/cause premature dormancy (unlikely unless extreme drops, but it might not be the cleanest fermentation).

Or vice versa, i could take a yeast that is happy at 60F, pitch too high at 70F and leave it at that temp for 1-2 days before getting it down to 60 and it is already way to late to have stopped any off flavors from occuring. The yeast rips through the beer too fast and does a burn out, creating unwanted esters and fusel alcohols. Then the relatively lowered temp makes the yeast less likely to clean up after itself.

Good standard practice for clean, predicatble fermentation: pitch 1-2 degrees lower than target fermentation temp, maintain your fermentation temp for 3-7 days and slowly bump up the temperature over the next week. This might not be what you want to do for all styles or some traditional methods, but for most styles this will consistently give your yeast the little boost it needs to finish up all fermentable sugars without any risk of off flavors, and it cleans up all byproducts of fermentation without having to work too hard, which makes for clean beer.

 

[Dadux]

Ok will wait another week (i planned to do that anyway heh)
I know about those temps, Ashevillain, i just cant temp control that smoothly. I pitched slighly hot because i was going to sleep and didnt want to leave all the beer overnight there in case it would let other microbes settle in. I have no chiller, so i just add 1 liter of fridge temp water to my 13l of wort and keep the pot in the sink until it cools to at least 60ºC...its far from ideal because that takes time and im guessing hops release some more AA but...all i can do with my current setup. Then just transfer to buckets and let chill until i pitch.

 

[JordanKnudson]

Ok will wait another week (i planned to do that anyway heh)
I know about those temps, Ashevillain, i just cant temp control that smoothly. I pitched slighly hot because i was going to sleep and didnt want to leave all the beer overnight there in case it would let other microbes settle in. I have no chiller, so i just add 1 liter of fridge temp water to my 13l of wort and keep the pot in the sink until it cools to at least 60ºC...its far from ideal because that takes time and im guessing hops release some more AA but...all i can do with my current setup. Then just transfer to buckets and let chill until i pitch.

Just a random suggestion--do your chilling in the reverse order of what you described. The cold water from the fridge will be more helpful at the end of chilling, when coaxing the temperature down becomes slower and more difficult, rather than at the beginning when the temperature is so high that the mere thought of a cool breeze will easily knock it down 10 degrees.

 

[SanPancho]

Just a random suggestion--do your chilling in the reverse order of what you described. The cold water from the fridge will be more helpful at the end of chilling, when coaxing the temperature down becomes slower and more difficult, rather than at the beginning when the temperature is so high that the mere thought of a cool breeze will easily knock it down 10 degrees.

Yes. This.

 

[Ashevillain]

I suggest doing the no chill method over night and using a swamp cooler. I skipped swamp coolers initially because i had an old chest freezer to use, but when it died i gave swamp coolers a try thinking it wouldnt work great and would be a pain, they work pretty damn good. Just set the fermentors in water, wrap some towels around them, toss in some frozen water bottles (adjust this as you measure temp of water to be ~4degrees less than your target temp), and put a fan on it. Works amazing and its crazy that you can keep it pretty precise without much effort.

 

[Dadux]

I suggest doing the no chill method over night and using a swamp cooler. I skipped swamp coolers initially because i had an old chest freezer to use, but when it died i gave swamp coolers a try thinking it wouldnt work great and would be a pain, they work pretty damn good. Just set the fermentors in water, wrap some towels around them, toss in some frozen water bottles (adjust this as you measure temp of water to be ~4degrees less than your target temp), and put a fan on it. Works amazing and its crazy that you can keep it pretty precise without much effort.

But i've read that the problem with this is that you still get AA from the pellets until 60° or so. Even if its not that much its enough to impact the beer. And i dont have that much space and share the house with ppl who would not love that a lot...
But the tip about adding the cold water later is good. Im still working on this stuff though. I do not remove any turb but i read thar is not as bad. And for next time i will put half the volume in another pot and use the two sinks i have since i guess the wort will cool twice as fast. Once it reaches 60 put into bucket, close lid, airlock and pitch in the morning.

However i intended to bottle this incoming week so i hope this M15 deal does not set me back a lot time-wise (more beer to brew, ya know...)

 

[Ashevillain]

Yeah no need to worry about trub at all. A lesser swamp cooler consists of just damping a towel and wrapping the fermentor, its an eyesore but it will help keep the temp down a couple degrees. If you are ancy to brew again go ahead and take a gravity reading you may be surprised.

 

[Dadux]

Im not that antsy, i just thought "hell, 2-3 weeks in primary is enough and the ferment is done... lets bottle and do sth else" but its still fermenting. Im not gonna bother with SG because even if its nearly finished its still bubbling as yesterday and there's turb all over so...not bottling until that settles, definitely.

And nice advice, appreciated, will try the towel thing for next batches.

 

[RM-MN]

Im not that antsy, i just thought "hell, 2-3 weeks in primary is enough and the ferment is done... lets bottle and do sth else" but its still fermenting. Im not gonna bother with SG because even if its nearly finished its still bubbling as yesterday and there's turb all over so...not bottling until that settles, definitely.

And nice advice, appreciated, will try the towel thing for next batches.

Don't confuse a bubbling airlock with fermentation. An airlock is just a device to allow excess gas to escape without allowing insects in. It can bubble from a change in temperature, change in atmospheric pressure, or from outgassing CO2 that had been dissolve in your beer. Use your hydrometer to determine if the beer has completed fermentation, not the airlock. Hydrometers don't lie.

Fermentation of an ale only takes 2 to 4 days for an average beer. That's when all the CO2 is produced. Another day or so takes care of cleanup of byproducts. Then the yeast and trub begin to settle out. Since those are not much more dense than the beer they are suspended in it may take a long time to settle, like more than a week for the bulk, years for the last of the yeast.

http://www.brewgeeks.com/the-life-cycle-of-yeast.html

 

[Dadux]

Don't confuse a bubbling airlock with fermentation. An airlock is just a device to allow excess gas to escape without allowing insects in. It can bubble from a change in temperature, change in atmospheric pressure, or from outgassing CO2 that had been dissolve in your beer. Use your hydrometer to determine if the beer has completed fermentation, not the airlock. Hydrometers don't lie.

Fermentation of an ale only takes 2 to 4 days for an average beer. That's when all the CO2 is produced. Another day or so takes care of cleanup of byproducts. Then the yeast and trub begin to settle out. Since those are not much more dense than the beer they are suspended in it may take a long time to settle, like more than a week for the bulk, years for the last of the yeast.

http://www.brewgeeks.com/the-life-cycle-of-yeast.html

I dont get why you say this. I know it. And yet the turb was packed down and the aiirlock nearly not bubbing in both carboy and overnight one started to bubble and recirculate the turb...and one didnt. If it was preassure or degassing or tems that would not happen.

 

[Ashevillain]

I will say I've had something similar happen with a NEIPA using a classically low floccing yeast strain. I kept seeing bubbles surfacing and stuff moving around even during bottling. But the OG hadn't changed after a week of trying to let it settle down and I bottled in this state, where entire clumps of yeast were resurfacing and actively getting moved around. The beer was nicely attenuated for the style at 1.012 and definitely finished. I am still unsure exactly why it started behaving this way other than dissolved CO2 exiting solution as I ramped the temps and causing what looked like legitimate work happening.

The guys at the LHBS mentioned possible infection considering prolonged activity after reaching a reasonable OG, but this was deff not the case.

 

[Dadux]

I ended up measuring sg two days ago and it was at 1.020, much higher than expected. Og was 1.057 and i expected at least 1.017 so it makes sense it restarted to chug those last points

 

[Ashevillain]

Hopefully it cleans itself up! Two things I think about is that 1.057 is a touch high for no starter unless you pitch 2 packs, and going from the higher to lower temps probably threw the yeast off a bit. Let us know how it turns out!

 

[Dadux]

Hopefully it cleans itself up! Two things I think about is that 1.057 is a touch high for no starter unless you pitch 2 packs, and going from the higher to lower temps probably threw the yeast off a bit. Let us know how it turns out!

It was only 14L, or 3.5 gal. So mangrove recommends 1 pack for 5 gals at 1.050 and so i thought it would be ok. But i think it was. The other one atrenuated just fine going from 1.054 to 1.011, same volume and one pack of M44 yeast.
I wil bottle that one tomorrow and measure gravity of the M15 batch since the burps have slowed to ine every 3 minutes or so and the turb is slowly sedimenting again

 

[Dadux]

took a few days to clear and sediment back but it did. Bottled yesterday with 77 grams of table sugar. the FG was 1.016 and 71% attenuation which is perfectly fine. I feel Mangrove ale yeasts usually end in the low end of their attenuation range, which is actually a good thing for me.
I had a taste of the beer. It was still slightly green but had a nice flavour and not too heavy for a 1.016 FG. Next time i will take the SG measure sooner and stirr the yeast back up if its not finished.
If people are interested I'll give further details on taste when i drink the beer

 

[Ashevillain]

I am definitely interested!

 

[Dadux]

I just tasted it. I know its still early because it only has been one week in the bottle but i decided to put one in the fridge 2 days ago and see how it was to compare age improvement.
I will copy paste my recipe and tasting logs:

Recipe: Brown-Red Ale
Malt:
• Dark Munich: 2kg
• Vienna: 1.3kg
• Caramel 300: 0.36kg (10%)
Hops:
• Magnus (11%): 15g @ 30 m
• Tettnanger (3.9%): 12g @ 10 m
• Tettnanger (3.9%): 12g @ 2 m
IBU: 26.8
SRM/EBC: 19.7/38.8
Yeast: Mangrove Jack’s M15 Empire Ale
Mash: 68ºC
Volume: 13.5l.
SG:
• Expected: 1.056
• Actual: 1.057
FG:
• Expected: 1.017
• Actual: 1.016
ABV:
• Expected: 5.2%
• Actual: 5.4%
Efficiency: 65%
Attenuation: 71%
Priming sugar: 77g
Bottled: 31/10/2017
Notes: Add half of the caramel (180g) 5m before finishing mash. Added 200g sugar after boil. Really fast yeast. After 24h really slowed down. Fermented to 1.020 then restarted a week later and went down to 1.016


Tasting notes: (the ratings are my perception according to what i expected at this point and my personal taste/oppinion)

Bottling: 31/10
Tasting 1:
• Date: 07/11 Age: 27 days Days in bottle: 7
• Pour and appearance: 33cl bottle, dark red or brown, slightly cloudy, yeast not compacted enough, left 2cm of beer in the bottle. 8/10
• Head: low, not lasting 6/10
• Aroma: mostly malty when warmed, some hop earthy and floral aroma, bready 7/10
• Taste: malt forward, balanced bitterness background, hops, earthy, some nuts, some roast, bready, bitter mix from hops and malt, maybe slightly too much malt roast. No yeast esters (plum?) are noticeable at this point. 7/10
• Mouthfeel: silky, balanced, good body. 8/10
• Overall: Only true complaint is slightly too much bitterness coming from the malt. Other things could be improved. Mouthfeel and carbonation levels are on point. Great tasting early on but not so quaffable. 7/10
• Improvements: lower caramel 300 to 6% or so of the total grain, maybe 1.5 or 2x last hop addition (make it dry hopping or flameout) and go for 25 IBUs.


When i had the first sip it was reeeaally good but as i said, too much roastness to casually drink a couple of this. However its my first dark-ish beer and i really enjoyed it. I still hope some roastiness will go away in 1-2 weeks and maybe show some of those dark fruit esters promised in the yeast pack (since it was pitched slighly hot i expected those, actually). Will see how or if it evolves in 5-7 days. Will also try the M44 pale ale and then i will see which is my prefered one.

 

[RM-MN]

I just tasted it. I know its still early because it only has been one week in the bottle but i decided to put one in the fridge 2 days ago and see how it was to compare age improvement.
I will copy paste my recipe and tasting logs:

Recipe: Brown-Red Ale
Malt:
• Dark Munich: 2kg
• Vienna: 1.3kg
• Caramel 300: 0.36kg (10%)
Hops:
• Magnus (11%): 15g @ 30 m
• Tettnanger (3.9%): 12g @ 10 m
• Tettnanger (3.9%): 12g @ 2 m
IBU: 26.8
SRM/EBC: 19.7/38.8
Yeast: Mangrove Jack’s M15 Empire Ale
Mash: 68ºC
Volume: 13.5l.
SG:
• Expected: 1.056
• Actual: 1.057
FG:
• Expected: 1.017
• Actual: 1.016
ABV:
• Expected: 5.2%
• Actual: 5.4%
Efficiency: 65%
Attenuation: 71%
Priming sugar: 77g
Bottled: 31/10/2017
Notes: Add half of the caramel (180g) 5m before finishing mash. Added 200g sugar after boil. Really fast yeast. After 24h really slowed down. Fermented to 1.020 then restarted a week later and went down to 1.016


Tasting notes: (the ratings are my perception according to what i expected at this point and my personal taste/oppinion)

Bottling: 31/10
Tasting 1:
• Date: 07/11 Age: 27 days Days in bottle: 7
• Pour and appearance: 33cl bottle, dark red or brown, slightly cloudy, yeast not compacted enough, left 2cm of beer in the bottle. 8/10
• Head: low, not lasting 6/10
• Aroma: mostly malty when warmed, some hop earthy and floral aroma, bready 7/10
• Taste: malt forward, balanced bitterness background, hops, earthy, some nuts, some roast, bready, bitter mix from hops and malt, maybe slightly too much malt roast. No yeast esters (plum?) are noticeable at this point. 7/10
• Mouthfeel: silky, balanced, good body. 8/10
• Overall: Only true complaint is slightly too much bitterness coming from the malt. Other things could be improved. Mouthfeel and carbonation levels are on point. Great tasting early on but not so quaffable. 7/10
• Improvements: lower caramel 300 to 6% or so of the total grain, maybe 1.5 or 2x last hop addition (make it dry hopping or flameout) and go for 25 IBUs.


When i had the first sip it was reeeaally good but as i said, too much roastness to casually drink a couple of this. However its my first dark-ish beer and i really enjoyed it. I still hope some roastiness will go away in 1-2 weeks and maybe show some of those dark fruit esters promised in the yeast pack (since it was pitched slighly hot i expected those, actually). Will see how or if it evolves in 5-7 days. Will also try the M44 pale ale and then i will see which is my prefered one.

Nicely done report. Your beer is still young and will improve quite a bit in the next 2-3 months and beyond. The couldiness will subside, the head will become longer lasting, and the roastiness will mellow out. In 6 months it will all be gone and you'll be wishing you had left some of the bottles for later comparison.

 

[Dadux]

I've been slowly drinking this beer but today is been in bottles 17 days so more than two weeks and decided to do a second report. I will do another one next week and this way i can compare the different profiles.

This beer has evolved nicely. In fact as i said i made it side by side with another one (m44 fermented american amber ale) and in the start i prefered the other one. But three days ago some friends came by and i let them try both and they both showed a preference for this one. THe roastness has subsided so its easy to drink and enjoy now. There is some dark fruit and maybe raisiny taste but the esters are not upfront at all...you can find some cherry and plum if you really want to look for them but the malt is the big factor here. I was wondering if there is any way to get more of those esters? i already pitched at like 28ºC. Altough i can pitch at 35ºC. I think i might even try. OR would it be better to go easier on the malt so it doesnt cover the esters? after all 41% of the grain is Dark Munich here...

I will do a stout now with 10% caramel 300 and 10% dark chocolate (1000 SRM) and let it age for two months, one in the bucket and one in the bottle. i was worried of it going to be too monodimensional but after tasting this i dont think so. Pilsner base, some dark munich and vienna (30% total) and then 10% caramel 300 and 10% chocolate. Same yeast since the mouthfeel is great.