Mostly a fermentation question. R.I.S

[Dave37]

Hey how's it going everyone. My question is about keeping my fermentation from dropping my stout's gravity too low. I started out with an OG of 1.094 and am looking for it to end just slightly lower than it currently is. I just took my first gravity reading and it is at 1.032 after 3 days. The fermentation had been rocking until today. It seems like it is slowing down on its own but I want it to stop at the 1.024~1.030 range. My thoughts on actions to take are racking off the cake very early on which I am hesitant to do. Or maybe dropping down the temps substantially on my primary. Any other suggestions or assurance you can give me about my considerations would be great. Thanks. And cheers!
Anything

 

[Pie_Man]

I would leave it alone, especially since fermentation is visibily slowing down.

 

[kingwood-kid]

If you're bottling, you pretty much have to let the yeast do it's thing and let the beer end up at whatever gravity the yeast quits at. Theoretically, you could kill the yeast in there now with heat or chemicals and replace it with a less hungry yeast. That's a bit tricky. If you're kegging, then you can just crash cool whenever you like.

 

[Dave37]

Thanks to both of you for your input. Lets just hope I get lucky I guess. I have the ability to keg but I planned on bottling this batch since I want to give it a lot of time to condition. This is my first time making an imperial stout of any kind and this had been my main concern from the start. Looking forward to seeing the final product in a month or so.

Thanks again. Cheers.

 

[carton132]

What about cold crashing and then carbing in a keg before bottling? It would require adding a new piece of equipment to your collection (beer gun or counter pressure filler) but it might help you meet your goal and free the keg back up quickly for another brew.

 

[kingwood-kid]

What about cold crashing and then carbing in a keg before bottling? It would require adding a new piece of equipment to your collection (beer gun or counter pressure filler) but it might help you meet your goal and free the keg back up quickly for another brew.

If there's still yeast in suspension, they'll wake up if you get the temps high enough, and keep eating. Then you'd have exploding bottles. I guess you could keep the entire batch cold, but I think it's best to just let this one ferment until it's done.

 

[sweetcell]

you control your FG mainly by your actions before you pitch the yeast, like mashing temp, recipe formulation, etc. once the yeast is pitched, it is best to stand back and let the little buggers do their thing. to a certain extent you can ramp up fermentation temperature to increase fermentation, but you shouldn't use decreasing temps to slow or stop fermentation - that could cause the yeast to go dormant and stop fermentation early.

stopping the fermentation anywhere above the "natural" FG is a bad idea. you will likely harm, if not ruin, the beer. after fermentation reached FG, the yeast continue to clean up after themselves - they reabsorb intermediary products that didn't make it all the way through the fermentation process. essentially the yeast are desperately trying to get energy from anything they can, including stuff they had previously given up on. some of those intermediates are responsible for off-flavors, like acetaldehyde and diacetyl. so if you try to stop fermentation before the yeast go into that frenzied cleaning mode = beer with off-flavors.

control your FG via mashing temp, recipe formulation,

 

[Dave37]

you control your FG mainly by your actions before you pitch the yeast, like mashing temp, recipe formulation, etc. once the yeast is pitched, it is best to stand back and let the little buggers do their thing. to a certain extent you can ramp up fermentation temperature to increase fermentation, but you shouldn't use decreasing temps to slow or stop fermentation - that could cause the yeast to go dormant and stop fermentation early.

stopping the fermentation anywhere above the "natural" FG is a bad idea. you will likely harm, if not ruin, the beer. after fermentation reached FG, the yeast continue to clean up after themselves - they reabsorb intermediary products that didn't make it all the way through the fermentation process. essentially the yeast are desperately trying to get energy from anything they can, including stuff they had previously given up on. some of those intermediates are responsible for off-flavors, like acetaldehyde and diacetyl. so if you try to stop fermentation before the yeast go into that frenzied cleaning mode = beer with off-flavors.

control your FG via mashing temp, recipe formulation,

This is why I chose not to rack off of the cake because I know the importance of the yeast needing time to clean up after themselves. I mashed at 156 for the reason of a fuller bodied less attenuated beer. I hoped these "tactics" would help me reach my goal. Thank you for your input and things are looking better for me today. I did my 2nd SG reading and fermentation has almost stopped completely (visibly anyway). With a reading of 1.028, a drop of .004 points in 24 hours I'm hopeful it will stall out completely at around 1.024-1.026. I really appreciate all the advice and am hoping all this has been me just being a worrywart. Thanks again everyone.

Cheers!