holiday stout question

[hendo80]

After a year off, I decided to get back in the game. Still learning and probably over ambitious, but it's fun. First stout and first time double pitching on a Milk Chocolate Holiday Stout. After 9 days in the primary, it's still pretty far off of the FG, but I don't know if that's good bad or just impatient!

The recipe says OG = 1.071, and it was probably a little high at 1.073
Took my first reading today after 9 days and I get a 1.029 at 66 degrees. FG is supposed to be 1.019.

I double pitched with two room temp vials of WLP013. Here are all the "flashback" moments I'm thinking about:

1. when steeping the grains it boiled for about 1 - 2 minutes before we caught it, due to poor temp probe placement (it was in the 6lbs of grain) and poor monitoring (nice Sunday NFL afternoon), otherwise the grains steeped for an hour. Hour long boil was uneventful.

2. pitching temps were less than precise. New wort chiller worked awesome and I think it was close to 80 - 82, but concerned I might have been too hasty in pulling the chiller at about 85. Poured the wort into the fermenter with a couple of gallons of room temperature distilled water, stirred like crazy to aerate the wort (but did I aerate enough?). When I took the OG reading, the wort in the glass was 77 degrees.

3. The airlock was screwed up the first 24 hours due to not enough liquid in the airlock. Airlock was on and it was definitely fermenting, but not bubbling until I put more vodka in the airlock (it's the cap type). Not real vigorous bubbling, just steady.

4. temps. It got cold here in Texas and ambient temps around 68 - 70 degrees, which is pretty good. It was still occasionally bubbling after 7 days (at about 1 per 90 seconds). The last two days I was out of town and the bucket got down to 66. No bubbling tonight, so I took the reading.

The good news: it tastes pretty good, there is definitely a holiday stout in there, just maybe a "light stout" at this point.

My questions: if I get the temp up to 70, would it help the fermentation? Do I need to help the fermentation at this point, or just wait it out another week? Any chance I damaged the yeast by pitching at too high a temp? It will go straight to the corny keg and age for 4 weeks or so, so I'm hoping for a nice Christmas stout.

thanks for any advice!

 

[hendo80]

After thinking about it, I know I may be worrying about hitting FG a little early in the process. I'm going to keep the ambient at 70, check a couple of times over the next week and see how she goes.

one more question: I know that a secondary is not seen as required step these days, but on this stout, would it benefit from a secondary and having more sediment settle out before I keg it?

 

[JimRausch]

At this point, raising the temp to 70ish won't hurt and could be a good thing by keeping the yeast active.
Secondary? Well, think about it- if you are careful about not transferring a lot of the trub on the bottom when you siphon, your keg is essentially a secondary conditioning vessel. Your beer will clear just as well in there as it would in a carboy.

 

[hendo80]

Thanks Jim...I'm doing just that and I'll take another reading tomorrow. Agree on the keg secondary, as that's what I really want to do since I can put two cornys in my converted freezer/fermentation chamber along with my primary bucket, and eventually have three batches going over time.

My worries were from several other posts where they talk about being stuck after 8 or 9 days....so I'm getting a little paranoid!

Dave

 

[hendo80]

so it seems definitely stuck at 1.030 with a starting OG of 1.073, should have gone to 1.019 - 1.21 or so.

anything I can do? Should I just put it in the keg and let it sit for a month? if I keg it to age it a bit longer, should I also go ahead and prime it?

I have a feeling (after talking to my LHBS guys) it was definitely undone by boil that happened while I was trying to steep the 6lbs of grain and we didn't get the temp down quickly. The 7lbs of LME saved it to some degree I guess.


ready to get on with my next batch...

 

[metanoia]

There is a possibility that you killed off some of your yeast when pitching at such high temps, but I don't think we'll ever know for sure. I'd say pick up another vial, make a start, pitch that in, and let it sit for another week or two. After that you'll have to decide what to do with it if it's still stuck.

And when you say it tastes like a "light stout," you mean just in ABV, right? I'd assume it'd still be pretty sweet having only attenuated 58%.

 

[andy6026]

Someone that understand mashing/steeping chemistry better than me should chip in on this, but if you accidentally boiled your grains for a minute or two might that have significantly reduced/impeded the starch's conversion to fermentable sugars, and why your FG is higher than expected?

 

[hendo80]

yes, it's sweet for sure. It's a milk stout, so a pound of lactose is in there as well.

Andy...you are spot on, the LHBS guys thought that "long chain sugars" were created when I boiled the grain.

that said, and as metanoia suggested, I'm still suspicious of my pitching temps. I'll do the starter and pick up another vial. I really don't want to give up on it....

Interesting news though....I have an old batch of Newcastle clone that wasn't really drinkable last year, too estery, and it really took the wind out of my sails as I had such high hopes. Never dumped it, and is still sitting pressurized in the keg that I'd like to use for this stout. I tried it tonight and guess what....not bad at all. I'm going to chill it and force carbonate it, call it FrankenCastle....