Help! I'm Stuck!

[charliedvrs]

I know there are tons of stuck fermentation threads out there and I've read most of them, but I'm looking for some brew specific advise on this one. Don't have all of my notes at hand, so please bare with me. Recipe from the Brewers Best Oatmeal Stout kit. This one has been in the fermenter for 3 weeks now, stuck at 1.030. I've tried shaking up the bucket. After two weeks I repitched with Nottingham. Twice tried bringing the fermentation temperature up to 70F. It hit 1.032 on day 7 and has done next to nothing since. Yeast was new and well before expiration date. I planned on make this one a vanilla-bean coffee stout, so I have about half a pound of coffee beans sitting in vodka as well as two scraped out vanilla beans. I also added one pound of store bought honey to the boil at the 30 minute mark to boost the alcohol a bit. Could that be the culprit? Really don't want all of this to go to waste. Where would you go from here? The beer tastes super sweet. Is it time to just add water at bottling? Should I even bother with the coffee and vanilla?

Partial Mash Oatmeal Stout

FERMENTABLES
3.3 lb. Special Dark LME
3 lb. Extra Dark DME
1 lb. Maltodextrin
SPECIALTY GRAINS
1 lb. Oats
6 oz. Dark Chocolate
12 oz. 2-row Pale
2 oz. Caramel 120L
4 oz. Victory
HOPS
1 oz. Fuggles
1 oz. Cascade
YEAST
1 pack of Windsor

+1lb of honey at 30min of boil

 

[Maltose]

Did you make a starter?
What was your O.G.?

 

[charliedvrs]

Did you make a starter?
What was your O.G.?

No starter, didn't think it was necessary for the dry Windsor. I don't have my brew notes in front of me but I believe it was about 1.070.

 

[Pappers_]

The yeast may not be your problem. With any dry yeast, its not necessary to make a starter - there is plenty of viable cells in a dry yeast packet. Windsor is a lower attenuating yeast, though. If you've already re-pitched yeast, warmed it up and agitated it, I'm not sure what else you can do that is yeast-related.

Maltodextrin is a non-fermentable. That, coupled with the pound of oats and the other adjuncts, plus whatever non-fermentables were in the extract, may mean that 1.030 is where you're going to end up.

 

[yodalegomaster]

One drop of Beano liquid. Will cut down the long chain dextrins and start it fermenting. This will thin the beer out considerably but it's your only choice. at 1.03x it's going to be very sweet.

 

[charliedvrs]

The yeast may not be your problem. With any dry yeast, its not necessary to make a starter - there is plenty of viable cells in a dry yeast packet. Windsor is a lower attenuating yeast, though. If you've already re-pitched yeast, warmed it up and agitated it, I'm not sure what else you can do that is yeast-related.

Maltodextrin is a non-fermentable. That, coupled with the pound of oats and the other adjuncts, plus whatever non-fermentables were in the extract, may mean that 1.030 is where you're going to end up.

So just chalk it up to a poorly planned recipe?

The beer is super sweet tasting at this point. Will watering help make this a drinkable beer? Would adding the coffee at this point be a waste?

 

[charliedvrs]

One drop of Beano liquid. Will cut down the long chain dextrins and start it fermenting. This will thin the beer out considerably but it's your only choice. at 1.03x it's going to be very sweet.

Think I might give this a shot. I've heard Beano can give you bottle bombs but I guess I'll just have to be careful. As far as it being thin I guess I could always tell people it's a Vanilla Coffee Black Pale Ale. Will I need to repitch again or should the yeast already in there be able to convert the new fermentable sugars?

 

[PT Ray]

So just chalk it up to a poorly planned recipe?

No question about it, that recipe sucked! Anytime I come across a stuck fermentation thread my first question is if dark extract was used. Then to add a pound of oats, maltodextrin and Windsor yeast on top of that is insane. Makes me wonder if any one at Brewer's Best actually brewed this.

 

[Calder]

I don't think it is stuck, I think it is done. Windsor is a low attenuator, and the maltodextrin adds 7 points to your FG straight away since it is non-fermentable.

I think 1.070 is too low. The extract, dextrin and honey will give you 1.064 OG for 5 gallons. Depending on how good your mash was you could have an additional 75 points (or +.015 on OG) with an 80% efficient mash.

Lets say you were at 1.075, -7 for the Maltodextrin = 1.068 effective fermentable wort. Your FG is 1.030, -7 for the Maltodextrin = 1.023.

Going from 68 to 23 is about 66% attenuation. That's probably good for Windsor.

Adding the Nottingham, is just like adding yeast at bottling. It as no chance to reproduce, so there is very little yeast to eat through the remaining sugars. It will be very slow. To carb a beer, priming sugar is about 3 points (of simple sugars), and it takes a couple of weeks at 70F to get that down, so you can see to get to 75% attenuation of the fermentables (to about 1.024), it could take a couple of months.

With regular yeast you will not get much below 1.024. Ever thought of adding Brett and putting it away for 6+ months.

I've never used Beano. Since you are at the limit for Windsor and you have a low number of Notty yeast cells, I'm not sure it's going to do much. I don't think it will speed up fermentation.

 

[mightynintendo]

Be careful with the Beano. I'd recommend going with amylase enzyme.

 

[KAMMEE]

Add some yeast nutrient to some boiling water, let cool, add that to the fermenter and see if that helps kick start it.

 

[Haputanlas]

Think I might give this a shot. I've heard Beano can give you bottle bombs but I guess I'll just have to be careful. As far as it being thin I guess I could always tell people it's a Vanilla Coffee Black Pale Ale. Will I need to repitch again or should the yeast already in there be able to convert the new fermentable sugars?

I wouldn't do that right away. I hear too many horror stories about Beano/AG.

I used Amylase Enzyme (AE) in my beer and went from 1.030 to 1.020 in about a week (OG was 1.090). That stuff is supposed to be a little bit more controlled. You probably want your stout to be a little bit more full-bodied than Beano would allow.

To be safe, I would take a little sample of the beer and put some AE in the solution and see what the Gravity drops to. You can also do this with Beano if you like. With AE, this should tell you exactly what your beer will do if you put it into the mix.

Safety, in this case, is important. You don't want to throw away 5 gallons of cidery stout

 

[charliedvrs]

Called my local homebrew shop and they carry the Amylase Enzyme. I'm in now rush to get this done so I think I'll try the slow and safe method first. Thanks a lot of all of the tips everyone, any more advice is greatly appreciated as well! I'll report back with any findings.

 

[charliedvrs]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/has-anyone-tried-brewers-best-oatmeal-stout-kit-208196/

Looks like a couple people have had trouble with this kit. I think a strongly worded letter to Brewer's Best is in order.

 

[charliedvrs]

Called my local homebrew shop and they carry the Amylase Enzyme. I'm in now rush to get this done so I think I'll try the slow and safe method first. Thanks a lot of all of the tips everyone, any more advice is greatly appreciated as well! I'll report back with any findings.

So I went ahead and added the Amylase Enzyme, and to my chagrin, it lowered the gravity for 1.030 to about 1.021! The beer still tastes slightly sweet (I was hoping for about 1.018) but I think the coffee bitterness will help balance that in the end, as well as dilute the beer slightly. Thanks everyone for your advice. Anyone else in a similar situation who thinks they've tried everything else, AE worked great for me. HBT saves yet another batch!

 

[OhDavey]

I brewed this kit last Saturday (my first brew) and am anticipating the same problems as everyone else since my OG was around 1.064. Can anyone comment on the effectiveness of adding a yeast energizing powder versus adding amylase enzyme? Would it hurt to add both?

 

[BigB]

I brewed this kit last Saturday (my first brew) and am anticipating the same problems as everyone else since my OG was around 1.064. Can anyone comment on the effectiveness of adding a yeast energizing powder versus adding amylase enzyme? Would it hurt to add both?

Davey you don't need to ask the exact same question in two threads, its bad form.

 

[OhDavey]

noted.

 

[breez7]

busted.




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