fermentation issues.

[jrgtr42]

Kegged up my pale ale for the kiddo's birthday party last night.
Had an interesting time with it. This is a recipe I've done a dozen times, and rarely had any issues. Brew day here went fine, hit all my numbers within a point or so, pitched my yeast, that I did a starter as usual, left it alone for a couple weeks, then went to test. The gravity had barely budged. It had moved less than 10 points. I grabbed a pack of S05, added it in, and things happenned, but 2 weeks after that it was still bubbling slowly. Finally had a couple days with no observable change, and it was just a couple points off expected FG, so I called it good. Cold crashed and kegged.
Going back through my notes, there's only a couple possibilites. I had to put off brewing for a week for reasons - the social dictator, aka SWMBO found a whole lot of things to do that weekend. Since I pitch at high krausen of the starter, it had to finish up, so I put it in the fridge after that, so it was there, sealed for 4 or 5 days before brew day. Yes, I let it come to room temp before pitching, but the starter did go like gangbusters for a couple days before dropping krausen. That yeast had been harvested from another brew about 6 weeks before, sealed in the back of the fridge as |I usually do. I've used this process before with no problems.
The other possibility is that I used a new fermenter, with a smaller spout. Previously, I've been using an ale pail, and draining the wort through a kitchen strainer to catch the trub. I realized I didn't aerate the wort after draining to the fermenter.
Could this have caused the low action of the originial yeast?

 

[hotbeer]

I realized I didn't aerate the wort after draining to the fermenter.
Could this have caused the low action of the originial yeast?

That's what I'd go for at the moment. I too am interested in hearing the thoughts of the collective on this.

Though I'm sort of wondering what you meant about a "smaller spout". I'm sort of taking that to imply maybe you had less exposed liquid surface area as you would if your beer level was up in the neck of a carboy as opposed to just in a straight sided ferment bucket.

 

[loopybrewer]

This is interesting. What was the original yeast strain you used? If the OG was north of 1.055, depending on the yeast strain the lack of your usual aeration regiment it is entirely possible that your original pitch could have been stressed out, couldn't propagate and thus was unable attenuate properly. Only dropping 10 points in that time seems to me like your yeast couldn't build up and the cell count and just fermented with what was in the starter. Your second pitch, being US05, is so robust and the high cell count in a package would be able to handle being a bit deprived on O2 and still rip the gravity down.

That's my take on it, anyways.

How did it taste?

 

[jrgtr42]

That's what I'd go for at the moment. I too am interested in hearing the thoughts of the collective on this.

Though I'm sort of wondering what you meant about a "smaller spout". I'm sort of taking that to imply maybe you had less exposed liquid surface area as you would if your beer level was up in the neck of a carboy as opposed to just in a straight sided ferment bucket.

So up will now, I've been using the ale pail bucket.
I recently got a Genesis fermenter - it's more like a jug - with a fairly narrow opening, similar to a big mouth.
the surface area isn;t that much different, though. I wasn't able to go through my normal strainer, instead hooking a hose to the spigot on my kettle and that into the fermenter. So I'm guessing that aeration had something to do with it, but only giving that little change, from a 1.054 OG.

 

[jrgtr42]

This is interesting. What was the original yeast strain you used? If the OG was north of 1.055, depending on the yeast strain the lack of your usual aeration regiment it is entirely possible that your original pitch could have been stressed out, couldn't propagate and thus was unable attenuate properly. Only dropping 10 points in that time seems to me like your yeast couldn't build up and the cell count and just fermented with what was in the starter. Your second pitch, being US05, is so robust and the high cell count in a package would be able to handle being a bit deprived on O2 and still rip the gravity down.

That's my take on it, anyways.

How did it taste?

The original yeast was the same S05.
OG was 1.054.
Taste on the sample as I kegged seemed good, so it's not infected or anything. |Remains to be seen how it is carbed up.
It's also a test on force carbing versus priming in keg. Up till now i do the normal boiled and cooled corn sugar in the keg, let it naturally carb.

 

[loopybrewer]

The original yeast was the same S05.
OG was 1.054.
Taste on the sample as I kegged seemed good, so it's not infected or anything. |Remains to be seen how it is carbed up.
It's also a test on force carbing versus priming in keg. Up till now i do the normal boiled and cooled corn sugar in the keg, let it naturally carb.

Interesting indeed, if it was a liquid yeast pitch I could possibly buy into it being lack of O2, but a starter from a pack of US05 should have been a freight train through that wort regardless. Seeing as you had a vigorous krausen in the starter, you easily had enough yeast.

I was not suggesting it was infected haha, I was curious if you could detect any esters that would possibly indicate the yeast was stressed, though that yeast is pretty clean fermenting no matter what.

You got me stumped! The only other thing I can suggest would be if during that first few days after the original pitch the carboy got cold and the yeast dropped out. Atleast you saved it! Cheers!

 

[jrgtr42]

So as an update, I tapped it today.
After kegging Wednesday morning, I ran CO2 into it at about 30 PSI, shaking it till the hissing / bubbling stopped.
Let it sit though the day, re-ran Co2 that evening and again on thursday.
Let it sit, vented out what was left this moringin and hooked it up at 10 - 12 psi for serving.
Tasted fine, a hair sweeter than usual, which I expected at a 1.020FG compared to the usual 1.014.
It was cloudier than usual too, which again |I sort of expected, not really having the usual time I give it to clear.
probably 3.5 gallons left in there, I have another party next weekend I will probably pull it out for, so I'll give it the week to clear and light possibility of dry out a bit more.
Overall, I can't complain too much about it.
But next time using this fermenter, I'll make sure I aerate it well.

 

[micraftbeer]

As much as we strive to perfect our processes, to make our brew days successful and repeatable, it's also just as important to figure out how to rescue a brew day when something has gone wrong.

Because we all know it happens!

 

[hotbeer]

So what were your ferment times for the similar batches? Even though the fermentation may have stopped and given the same SG twice over a couple days, isn't there still some clean up going on by the yeast that might account for the cloudiness if you bottled/kegged just based on SG's?

I wait for my beer to clean itself up somewhat even if the SG's do indicate finished.

When I ferment in vessels or at levels in the jug that don't put the liquid up in the neck of the carboy, I get much faster ferments and the clean up process is also much faster yielding clearer beer with out all the cold crashing or fining processes needed.

Two to three weeks is typical for my gallon ferments that have the full diameter surface area of the jug. Less beer too, so maybe that's the issue or part of it.

Five or more weeks is the typical time fermenting for when I fill the jug up with wort above the shoulders and the surface area quickly becomes much less than one might imagine just by looking.

And be warned that I am very much a noob trying to make sense of what I'm experiencing myself and reading from others.

 

[eric19312]

One issue with starters is just what happened here...you produced a starter and had your yeast primed and ready to go but then life got in the way, brew day got rescheduled and now you are faced with putting the starter to sleep and waking it back up.

Making starters with dry yeast is giving up the product's major advantages -- long shelf life and ready to use. After more than 200 batches I am back to direct sprinkle dry yeast directly onto the wort when I use dry yeast. This is only about every 10th batch as the other batches are harvested from previous batch. For those batches I do oxygenate the wort but again no starters...the yeast is normally harvested about a week before pitching and I just bring it to room temperature while I am brewing.

 

[odie]

I'd agree...starters are totally unnecessary with dry yeast. just sprinkle it in. that's actually what the packages say to do.

I also harvest the dry yeast later and save it. Just re-pitch it when it's time. No starter, just decant the beer on top and dump it.

 

[Dr_Jeff]

Two to three weeks is typical for my gallon ferments that have the full diameter surface area of the jug. Less beer too, so maybe that's the issue or part of it.

Five or more weeks is the typical time fermenting for when I fill the jug up with wort above the shoulders and the surface area quickly becomes much less than one might imagine just by looking.

3-5 weeks?

It's done in several days.

 

[hotbeer]

3-5 weeks?

It's done in several days.

Done fermenting maybe, but not cleaning itself up.

I let mine sit till I can see into them. Looks prettier in the glass with less trouble and fuss. Tastes good too.

 

[IslandLizard]

The gravity had barely budged.

Measured with a hydrometer or refractometer?

 

[jrgtr42]

Measured with a hydrometer or refractometer?

Both. I use the refractometer mostly - even post fermentation, using the conversions is close enough for me - but when I saw it had barely moved after the couple weeks, I did back that reading up with the hydrometer - and it confirmed the reading I'd gotten, spot on after the conversion.