Help- Stuck Fermentation

[AlbertaBrewer]

Was hoping some of you experienced brewers could weigh in on my situation for me. I am new to AG but have been making wine for awhile now.

I started with 3 batches the first was an English Brown Ale followed by an Oatmeal Stout and Hefeweizen brewed about 3 weeks after. I mashed these all around 153 (depending on recipe) for 60 min, mashed out at 168, waited 15 min transferred to top until clear etc, repeated again with batch sparge (used beer smith for water calcs). they all finished with OG around 1.053-1.056 with efficiency's 76-86 (beer smith). So all seemed good, but should note I used RO water with no salts, water here is very very hard (next time will mix with tap water).

English Brown Ale fermented really hard and temperature spiked to around 27C(80F) so I panicked and put the carboy into a bucket with cold water, did not do much so added ice, next day was around 72f-22c so pulled it out. Waited 3 weeks for EBA and took SG before bottling- was 1.033 started 1.056ish not good. Also noticed a sour taste to it which took over the flavor over the next week.

Since then I have tried heat/shake/stir method, then tried giving it some air, re-pitching S0-4 (dry should have made a starter) added some yeast nutrient, nothing still 1.033. Thinking:

A) Chilling allowed infection to take hold thus sour taste, its garbage
B) Not enough minerals from RO water, yeast can't survive
C) Shocked the yeast so bad chilling they produced the unhappy proteins and the new yeast went dormant after re pitching

Now its been a week since I started the last two the Hefe was 1.023 from 1.054 and stout was 1.033 from 1.056ish same as EBA (little worried via water issue).

Only thing I can think of is to wait and transfer the stout to secondary for vanilla bean and cacao nib treatment and transfer the EBA onto the cake, stir, pray. If you think this is the way to go how long should I give that Stout before I rack it ( I know its normally ok after a week but perhaps I should be going by SG).

Also what kinds of SG drops should I be expecting after a week, are the other two batches considered normally or should they be lower (my wine goes dry in around a week).

 

[Yeastieboy]

Water was obviously fine to support conversion, given your OGs. I doubt the water impeded the yeast enough to stall you at 1.03.

What temp did you ferment these beers? You mention the spike to 80F and cooling to 72F. Should we assume they were all essentially fermented at 72F?

How did you oxygenate when you initially pitched. Sounds like an O2 deficiency to me, especially since it's a similar problem across three beers.

 

[AlbertaBrewer]

Yes, I have been aiming for 21c or 70f, which may be a little warm looking into things a bit more but should not be a deal killer on its own. For now I have just been adjusting with heat belts but am working on a stc 1000/ freezer/ceramic heater chamber in the future

 

[flars]

Are you using a refractometer or hydrometer for SG? Refractometers aren't accurate for FG because of the alcohol present. Unless it is cold in
Alberta you probably do not need to apply heat to the fermentors. Most ale yeast do fine at 65°F to 69°F. SO-4 ferments well as low as 59°F.

Have you calibrated your mash thermometers? Mashing higher than what the thermometer was showing could create unfermentable sugars resulting in a high FG.

Wait longer than a week for the fermentation to finish. The yeast may have done most of their work but it could be up to another week for the beer to ready.

 

[Yooper]

When S04 is fermented above about 66 degrees, it gets very tart and weird. I wonder if that is what you are picking up, with the description of the flavor? And unless your thermometer is way off, and you mashed at 160+, it's unlikely that your FG is so high so I suspect either a refractometer reading (useless) or a hydrometer error. If you're using a hydrometer, make sure to check it in RO water to see if it reads 1.000. If you're using a refractometer, toss it aside and use a hydrometer.

 

[AlbertaBrewer]

I mashed that one at 153F, after 60min I brought the temp up with some boiling water to 168, gave it 15 min to rest then took some pitchers out and threw them on top. I used 175f strike water to batch sparge the rest it came out to 168f if I go over I add some cold water to bring it down, give it 15 min recirculate manually was how I read to do it.

I use one of those digital meat thermometers seems to match up well with the kettle thermometer and the fermenter strips (I measure after I mix the grain into the water and again after the mash seems to stay pretty close in the cooler). I do use both refractor and hydrometer with wine but I cannot remember if I used the hydro meter or just the refractor (I do calibrate it with RO water) for the beer. My basement is about 61f most of the time maybe a little higher, I had read someone said they found the S-04 works best around 70f but that may have not been correct, I will not heat any longer.

I did not do anything special for O2 so guess that might be my issue guess there's nothing to do about that now, I am going to wait till Friday and will check the FG with the hydrometer instead figure there's no point in popping them all open everyday.

 

[AlbertaBrewer]

So I lied, I could not wait till friday and checked the OG on the EBA using the hydrometer. Turns out using the right tool for the job helps, I normally use it for wine since it falls well below 1 and did not know the alcohol screws it up. So long story short its sitting at 1.018.. since the readings on the other two were the same and much lower and they are both pushing bubbles to the surface makes me feel like they are coming along properly the issue was likely oxygen/heat.

So now the EBA is a little high 1.018 should be 1.013 but around 5% since it started around 1.056 .059. And there is that overwhelming sour/tang (After 3 weeks I could make out some of the EBA flavor I am used to but now its gone), and it is VERY murky at this point should I:

Accept that its as finished as its ever going to get and transfer to the secondary and give it some time (What I would do with a wine). Bottle it and hope for the best. Or still wait and throw it on the stout cake to see if I can get it down a bit more.