High FG Need Help

[tron]

Hi all. I have come to the third week of my first full boil partial mash brew and I still have a higher than desired gravity. My SG was 1.052 roughly and I currently have a gravity of 1.020 roughly and I would like to get it down to the 1.010 range. I used a AHS southern brown ale kit with the danstar windsor dry yeast option. I guess my first question would be if I could repitch in the secondary, can I safely add oxygen at this point with a repitch or would that ruin the beer? I think that my two major problems were/are not having enough aeration in the beginning, and not racking over any if much yeast to the secondary. I also do not have any airlock activity at the moment. TIA for any help.

 

[sonvolt]

Hi all. I have come to the third week of my first full boil partial mash brew and I still have a higher than desired gravity. My SG was 1.052 roughly and I currently have a gravity of 1.020 roughly and I would like to get it down to the 1.010 range. I used a AHS southern brown ale kit with the danstar windsor dry yeast option. I guess my first question would be if I could repitch in the secondary, can I safely add oxygen at this point with a repitch or would that ruin the beer? I think that my two major problems were/are not having enough aeration in the beginning, and not racking over any if much yeast to the secondary. I also do not have any airlock activity at the moment. TIA for any help.

FG of 1.020 is definitely high. Your yeast selection may be part of the problem. Windsor is a highly flocculant strain, which means that it tends to settle early and leave a high finishing gravity - i.e. a sweeter beer. 1.020 is a bit too high, though.

As for adding oxygen - don't even consider it again. Never add oxygen after the first signs of fermentation as this will oxygenate your beer.

As for repitching - I have done this. I have rehydrated some yeast and pitched into a slow fermentation. It has helped me in the past, but I try not to do it.

Before you do that, you should consider your fermentation temperature. How cold is it where your fermenter is sitting? Try moving your fermenter to a warmer location to see if you can wake those yeast up a bit.

BTW - RDWHAHB

 

[tron]

I have the fermenter at around 68-70 oF covered and sitting on styrofoam to keep the cold from the floor away. I guess it is lesson learned on using dry yeasts next time I will spend the few extra bucks to get what would seem to be better quality yeast. I will try repitching with some safale us56 I have its different than what I originally used but experimentation is part of brewing. Now if I can just find a forum on how to make starters for liquid yeast for next time I will be all grins.

 

[the_bird]

I haven't used Windsor, but I haven't heard anything real bad about it. I've used a lot of US-56 and Nottingham, and always gotten fast starts without having to deal with making a starter. Going to liquid yeast, even with a starter, won't necessarily lend itself to better results.

How did you aerate the batch? That's probably the key issue. If you REALLY want to get fancy, you can invest in an O2 system (about $35 from Williams Brewing) that will solve that problem, or just make damn sure to splash around enough when you top off (I'm assuming you do partial boils). I also had good luck running my wort (cooled) through a fine-mesh collander, although were I to do it over, I'd probably put that $20 towards the O2 system.

"Not racking over enough yeast" is rarely, if ever, a problem; there's a lot more still in suspension that you would believe.

 

[sonvolt]

I have the fermenter at around 68-70 oF covered and sitting on styrofoam to keep the cold from the floor away. I guess it is lesson learned on using dry yeasts next time I will spend the few extra bucks to get what would seem to be better quality yeast. I will try repitching with some safale us56 I have its different than what I originally used but experimentation is part of brewing. Now if I can just find a forum on how to make starters for liquid yeast for next time I will be all grins.

No no . . . don't misread what I said about your yeast. If you look at some of my other posts around here, you will see that I often make this claim:

Nottingham=Best.Yeast.Evar

Nottingham is another dried yeast produced by Danstar. That Windsor yeast you used is a great yeast. You should not feel any need to spend more money on yeast when you can buy a product like that one. What I meant was that the Windsor strain is known for high FG. It is a low attenuating yeast strain.

As for aerating? Did you do a full wort boil? If not, your top off water should have had plenty of 02 for a 1.050 brew. It sounds like your beer is warm enough, so oxygen must be the prob.

 

[tron]

Thats good to hear that I don't need to invest in the more expensive yeast. I did do a nearly full boil, only had to add 3 quarts of regular water, I thought I sloshed the wort around enough when I poured it in to the primary and then splashed it around more for about 5 minutes in the primary but I guess as I start new proceses I learn new techniques. I will try repitching this weekend and let you all know how it goes. Thanks again.

 

[david_42]

Windsor is highly flocculate & I suspect it just dropped out before you racked. You could repitch into the secondary, but don't oxygenate. You should see a FG of 1.013. Follow Danstar's re-hydration directions closely.

Liquid yeasts are different, not better. Liquid yeasts are liquid because the yeast cannot tolerate drying. They provide different flavor profiles, but for the dark side, you'll never notice.

 

[tron]

Thanks for the instruction link, it makes a lottle more sense than what is printed on the packages.

 

[tron]

Are there any recommended lower flocculation dry yeasts so that there is less chance of this happening again? Lower flocculation will also take longer to primary ferment right?