Gravity has not changed in 11 days in secondary.

[Pike]

My gravity has not moved from the reading I took when I went to my secondary carboy. 1.018. It has been 11 days in secondary. The recipe I am following said to leave behind the sediment at the bottom when moving to the carboy. The dead yeast, I guess.
So should I put some more yeast in it to finish the fermentation? Or just keep waiting? Or..........?

 

[carnevoodoo]

My gravity has not moved from the reading I took when I went to my secondary carboy. 1.018. It has been 11 days in secondary. The recipe I am following said to leave behind the sediment at the bottom when moving to the carboy. The dead yeast, I guess.
So should I put some more yeast in it to finish the fermentation? Or just keep waiting? Or..........?

What was your original gravity? What kind of yeast were you using? It would help if you posted a recipe and your process.

It is typically best practice to move to secondary only after the fermentation has finished. Secondary will allow aging and clearing, but typically removing it from the yeast will stop fermentation.

 

[PseudoChef]

Your gravity shouldn't change in secondary - all fermentation should occur in the primary fermenter.

And it's not dead yeast, just dormant now since they've consumed all the possible fermentable sugars.

 

[Pike]

It's an amber ale. The ingredients are as follows, Liquid malt extract, crushed crystal grain, 1 1/2 Oz. hop pellets, 14 grams beer yeast. I got it all as a kit with my beer brewing kit I bought at beer-wine.com.
My first reading was 1.044, @ 68-70 degrees. The recipe called fermenting for 3-4 days or until my gravity fell to 1/2 of the original, 1.016, then switching to the secondary carboy and let sit for 7-10 more days or until the final reading is around 1.008-1.012. So I did as such. The recipe also said to leave behind all sediment at the bottom of the first fermentation bucket, and I did. So what now. I just took a reading today and the gravity has not changed.

Below is the link to the Brew kit I bought. I bought the ingredients for the amber ale.
http://www.beer-wine.com/category_page.asp?categoryID=1&sectionID=1

 

[david_42]

I've never understood kit that say to rack before the fermentation is done. Makes no sense.

I'd add some more yeast. Something like Nottingham or Munton's Gold.

 

[malkore]

as already stated, your instructions were bad and you racked too early, stalling/slowing fermentation. if you can pitch more of the original yeast, great. if not, follow David's suggestion.

in the future, never rack to secondary until you've reached the expected final gravity (or within a couple points)

 

[Pike]

I guess I won't rack my brew before I reach my final gravity again.
Now, what if I don't have the same yeast. Can I use Bakers yeast? Because to get the same yeast I would have to reorder from beer-wine.com, and that will take up to another week. I guess, if I must to reorder I will, but If I don't have to I don't want to.

 

[Benny Blanco]

What brand of kit was it?

 

[Yooper]

I would not using bread yeast. First of all, it won't taste very good. Secondly, it doesn't have very high alcohol tolerance, so it won't ferment your beer any more than it is anyway.

I've used bread yeast in the Joe's Ancient Orange Mead, and the reason the recipe calls for that is because it isn't very attenuative, and has a low ABV tolerance, thus leaving that mead sweet. Your beer is already 3.5% ABV, so I don't think bread yeast would work anyway.

What type of yeast did you use originally? You're only about 59% attenuated. Any ale yeast should do better than that.

 

[Pike]

I think it was a "True Brew" kit. It came with Muntons ale yeast. Now If I order more ale yeast, and it take 4-7 days to get to me. The another 3-4 days to complete the fermentation. Am I running the risk of any other type of failure? such as spoiling of my warm, room temp brew?

 

[Yooper]

No, it won't spoil or anything like that. What I'm wondering is if the Munton's yeast just isn't very attenuative. I think I've heard of people having the same issue with Muntons yeast. Not the Munton's Gold, but the other one.

What was the recipe? Any malto-dextrine or anything else that could be contributing to the high FG? What temperature have you had it at for the last 12 days?

 

[Pike]

Room temp. I did put it in my cellar for a couple days right at the start of fermentation. The first day and a half. Then I found it was too cold and moved it up stairs. It did fine after that and fermented good. I took a reading about 4 days into fermentation and by way of the recipe when it fell to half of the original gravity I racked it to the secondary. Leaving behind all the yeast etc. that had settled to the bottom.
Liquid malt 2 cans.
Crushed Crystal grain.
14 grams montuns yeast.
1.5 oz. hop pellets.
water salts.
3/4 cup priming sugar.
1lb.Crystal Grain, 1.5 gal water. I used R.O. filtered water. bring to boil, remove and steep for 5mins.
Add the 2 cans Liquid malt extract "Amber",dry hops, and water salts. Boil for 30 min.
Cool wort, 70-80 degrees, and add it to Plastic bucket, top of to 5 gal. Rehydrate, and pitch yeast. Take reading. It was 1.043
Ferment 3-4 days, take another reading it was, and is still at 1.016. Rack to secondary. leaving behind any sediment.
Leave 7-10 days and check gravity again, when it has reached final 1.008-1.012 bottle.

 

[Bosh]

It's an amber ale. The ingredients are as follows, Liquid malt extract, crushed crystal grain, 1 1/2 Oz. hop pellets, 14 grams beer yeast. I got it all as a kit with my beer brewing kit I bought at beer-wine.com.
My first reading was 1.044, @ 68-70 degrees. The recipe called fermenting for 3-4 days or until my gravity fell to 1/2 of the original, 1.016, then switching to the secondary carboy and let sit for 7-10 more days or until the final reading is around 1.008-1.012. So I did as such. The recipe also said to leave behind all sediment at the bottom of the first fermentation bucket, and I did. So what now. I just took a reading today and the gravity has not changed.

Below is the link to the Brew kit I bought. I bought the ingredients for the amber ale.
http://www.beer-wine.com/category_page.asp?categoryID=1&sectionID=1

Those stupid brew kits ALWAYS give horrible directions. Don't take the beer out of primary until at least a few days after all fermentation is done. Personally I leave my beer in primary for a month and then bottle it and don't even bother with a secondary.

Also I would STRONGLY suggest switching from liquid extract to dried, both of my liquid extract beers were crap and all of my dried extract beers (except one that got infected) have been great.

Dried light extract + speciality malts + hops + yest = the best beer you can get without mashing.

 

[Spunkmeyer]

Ferment 3-4 days, take another reading it was, and is still at 1.016. Rack to secondary. leaving behind any sediment.
Leave 7-10 days and check gravity again, when it has reached final 1.008-1.012 bottle.

Pike, if it's any consolation, I purchased the same kit and followed the same directions, and had the same result. Fortunately, when I took a sample from the carboy with my thief, it roused enough of the remaining yeast to start the fermentation back up again. It got me down to .010 or so and I'm planning to bottle it tomorrow evening.

So, you may have the same luck before trying to add more yeast!

I will not make the same mistake next time... I'll just let it sit in the fermenter for 2 weeks before I even take a sample rather than doing it as soon as the directions said to. I just wish I had discovered this board prior to starting my first batch!

 

[Pike]

Yeah maybe I should try to stir it up a bit and see what happens.
The only thing about ordering more yeast is it's $2.00 for the yeast and $8-$9 to ship it. So I am trying to figure out what I want to brew next before I place another order.
Everyone is saying stay away from the kits. And stay away from the liquid extracts. I am thinking maybe a steam style beer, california common. Or maybe a Canadian Ale. Something on the light side this time. Now when I buy DME how much should I sub. for one can of LME. Is it 1lb to 1 can Or....?
Also any good recipes off the top of anyones head for a light style brew.
I am leaning toward the California common because it brings me closer to a lager, without having to have a freezer and temp control.

 

[Wade E]

Those instructions blow! It is better no not transfer wine or beer at all then to do it that late into fermentation as you are leaving too much active yeast behind and causes the fermentation to stall.

 

[Yooper]

Yeah maybe I should try to stir it up a bit and see what happens.
The only thing about ordering more yeast is it's $2.00 for the yeast and $8-$9 to ship it. So I am trying to figure out what I want to brew next before I place another order.
Everyone is saying stay away from the kits. And stay away from the liquid extracts. I am thinking maybe a steam style beer, california common. Or maybe a Canadian Ale. Something on the light side this time. Now when I buy DME how much should I sub. for one can of LME. Is it 1lb to 1 can Or....?
Also any good recipes off the top of anyones head for a light style brew.
I am leaning toward the California common because it brings me closer to a lager, without having to have a freezer and temp control.

I have a very nice California Common (Anchor Steam Clone) recipe:

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Boil Size: 2.43 gal
Estimated OG: 1.053 SG
Estimated Color: 9.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 33.6 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: - %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
6 lbs Extra Light Dry Extract (3.0 SRM) Dry Extract 85.71 %
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 14.29 %
1.75 oz Northern Brewer [8.00 %] (60 min) Hops 25.3 IBU
0.75 oz Northern Brewer [8.00 %] (30 min) Hops 8.3 IBU
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [8.00 %] (0 min) (Aroma HHops -

1 Pkgs San Francisco Lager (White Labs #WLP810) [Yeast-Lager
Make a starter two days before!

Steep crystal in 2.5 gallons of 152 degree water for 20 minutes. Drain, and discard grains. Bring “tea” to a boil and remove from heat and stir in the extract. Place back on heat and when boiling, add the first hops and set timer for 60 minutes. At 30 minutes, add second hops additon. At flame out, add last hops addition. Cool to under 80 degrees in an ice bath in the sink (or use wort chiller) and then place in fermenter. Add approx 3 gallons of water to bring to 5 gallons. Pitch yeast into wort at approx 62 degrees. Ferment until sg has been reached- should be approx 1.016. Condition in clearing tank (secondary) or allow to remain in primary for up to 4 weeks. This beer is better if cold conditioned after fermenting.

 

[Yooper]

As far as subbing DME for LME, you can do that. LME has water in it, so you use a little more.
1 pound LME = .75 pound DME.

If you find a source for fresh LME, then it's fine to use that in recipes. I know that places like nothernbrewer.com and austinhomebrew.com go through their LME fast, and it's always been fresh when I've purchased it from them. They have some very nice kits, too, and I've made a number of them in the past when I was doing extract brewing. I wouldn't write off kits yet, because there are some great ones!

 

[blacklab]

Yeah maybe I should try to stir it up a bit and see what happens.
The only thing about ordering more yeast is it's $2.00 for the yeast and $8-$9 to ship it. So I am trying to figure out what I want to brew next before I place another order.

Sorry if I missed it, but - don't you have a local place to buy supplies? You could drive an hour each way and still be cheaper than $9 shipping.

My advice? Go with Yoop's recipe. Use the late extract addition method. You'll have a nice beer.

 

[BrewDoc_Md]

I had a similar experience with a True Brew Pale Ale extract kit with that little pack (6 oz) of dry Muntons Ale yeast. 3 days after brewing bubbles seemed to stop and appparent FG was 0.020 higher than expected FG; didn't do down at all over the next 2 days. But, after reading some threads on here that suggested gentle swirling/giggling of the primary twice daily would "wake" the stalled yeast, the bubbles started again and the gravity fell near the anticipated FG. I racked it to secondary on day 8.

Moral of the story: I think the kit yeast sucked...either buy an extra Ale yeast package for these kits or do a starter 2-3 days in advance to increase the # of yeasties.

 

[Pike]

I have yeast on the way. Should be here in a couple days.
I bought "Safale S-04 Ale Brewing Yeast, 11.5g"
I copied that Cali common recipe to my word processer for future refrence. I think it will be my next attempt. Now where it says "Estimated Color: 9.8 SRM" How dark of a beer is that? And what does "Estimated IBU: 33.6 IBU" mean?
When you say cold condition, I should reach my final gravity, say 1.008-1.010 then keeping it in my secondary "Carboy" I should put it a refridgeirater trying for what temp? Or........??? ferment it only to 1.016 and then cold condition.
And to answer everyone, no, there's no local brew store rounds these parts. Not that I am aware of. I do wish there was. All of my supplies come off the internet.
The kit actually came with 2 packets of 7 gm yeast.
Anyway, thanks everyone.

 

[Yooper]

The estimated color SRM comes from this (lovibond) scale:

The IBUs are the International Bittering Units from the Tinseth scale. It measures the amount of bitterness: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Bitterness_Units_scale

To cold condition, you can either place your carboy in a cold place for a week or so (a fridge is good), or bottle and allow it to carb up, then refrigerate the bottles for 3-4 weeks.

 

[Pike]

Ok, Thanks. These will be usefull