greenbirds
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- May 15, 2008
- Messages
- 441
- Reaction score
- 9
Brewed a robust porter, all-grain, Had to add DME to bring the gravity up since my MLT is too small. Overshot the 1.069 recipe OG, got 1.073. After cooling gave it a decent shaking/aeration in the carboy (although I'm can't remember about how decent it was, since we had consumed many homebrews at this point). Added 2 packets of Safale S-04 at about 75 F.
Here's where I think we may have gone wrong. Over the next 8 hours overnight, the carboy sat in front of an open window (cold air)... Temp dropped to about 60 F, and fermentation had begun. Moved the carboy where the fermentation continued very vigorously at a steady 67-68 F for 3-4 days with lots of blowoff initially, then crawled along for a while.
It's now been 3 weeks in the primary. I've never had a stuck fermentation, so I started racking it to the secondary and measured the gravity during the transfer... 1.026. Ruh-roh. We finished racking it (took as much yeast with it as we could once we saw the gravity, and added another pack of S-04.)
Grain bill was:
6 lbs row
2.5 lbs Munich malt (10 °L)
1.25 lb Crystal 120L
9 oz Carapils
9 oz. Chocolate malt
7.0 oz. Black patent malt
+ ~2 lbs extra light DME
Mashed at about 155-156 for an hour. By the way it's the Avery New World Porter clone... lots of columbus and fuggles. It tastes great, but there is a barely detectable sweetness still there that leads me to think this isn't quite done.
I just couldn't believe with 2 packs of fresh S-04 this thing couldn't attenuate all the way. Any thoughts?
Here's where I think we may have gone wrong. Over the next 8 hours overnight, the carboy sat in front of an open window (cold air)... Temp dropped to about 60 F, and fermentation had begun. Moved the carboy where the fermentation continued very vigorously at a steady 67-68 F for 3-4 days with lots of blowoff initially, then crawled along for a while.
It's now been 3 weeks in the primary. I've never had a stuck fermentation, so I started racking it to the secondary and measured the gravity during the transfer... 1.026. Ruh-roh. We finished racking it (took as much yeast with it as we could once we saw the gravity, and added another pack of S-04.)
Grain bill was:
6 lbs row
2.5 lbs Munich malt (10 °L)
1.25 lb Crystal 120L
9 oz Carapils
9 oz. Chocolate malt
7.0 oz. Black patent malt
+ ~2 lbs extra light DME
Mashed at about 155-156 for an hour. By the way it's the Avery New World Porter clone... lots of columbus and fuggles. It tastes great, but there is a barely detectable sweetness still there that leads me to think this isn't quite done.
I just couldn't believe with 2 packs of fresh S-04 this thing couldn't attenuate all the way. Any thoughts?