hal simmons
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- Jun 16, 2007
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I made an extract stout (third brew ever) 11.5 days ago. Here are the malts I used for a 5 gallon batch.
8 lbs. Muntons Dark DME
1 lb. chocolate malt
1 lb. roasted barley
0.75 lb. black malt
0.5 lb. British crystal malt, 40° Lovibond
0.5 lb. dextrin malt
The grains got steeped separately at 155 degrees. I used Wyeast 1084 liquid yeast (smack pack), but did not make a starter. The fermentation started off great after about 10 hours, going strong for the first 4 days (had to use a blowoff tube for first 48 hours). By day 11 (last night) the airlock was down to 1 burp every 50 seconds. I forgot to take an OG reading, so I don't know where I started out at, but last night I decided to rack to a secondary and check the gravity while I was at it. It was at 1.030 and the wort tasted good, but sweet.
The problem is that now after racking (14 hours later) all bubbling in the airlock is pretty much stopped. I'm counting more than 3 minutes between burps. I'm thinking I racked too soon, and now I don't know what to do. I know for a stout the FG is going to be higher than most, but is 1.030 too high for this recipe? Do I just go ahead and bottle? Is there any danger of leaving it in the secondary if it's not fermenting? There's a good bit of headspace in the secondary, the beer comes up to where the bottle starts to curve at top.
What do I do? Do I bottle this weekend or leave it in the secondary for another week?
8 lbs. Muntons Dark DME
1 lb. chocolate malt
1 lb. roasted barley
0.75 lb. black malt
0.5 lb. British crystal malt, 40° Lovibond
0.5 lb. dextrin malt
The grains got steeped separately at 155 degrees. I used Wyeast 1084 liquid yeast (smack pack), but did not make a starter. The fermentation started off great after about 10 hours, going strong for the first 4 days (had to use a blowoff tube for first 48 hours). By day 11 (last night) the airlock was down to 1 burp every 50 seconds. I forgot to take an OG reading, so I don't know where I started out at, but last night I decided to rack to a secondary and check the gravity while I was at it. It was at 1.030 and the wort tasted good, but sweet.
The problem is that now after racking (14 hours later) all bubbling in the airlock is pretty much stopped. I'm counting more than 3 minutes between burps. I'm thinking I racked too soon, and now I don't know what to do. I know for a stout the FG is going to be higher than most, but is 1.030 too high for this recipe? Do I just go ahead and bottle? Is there any danger of leaving it in the secondary if it's not fermenting? There's a good bit of headspace in the secondary, the beer comes up to where the bottle starts to curve at top.
What do I do? Do I bottle this weekend or leave it in the secondary for another week?