Hey everyone, I hate to post one of these threads but here goes.
11 litre / 3 Gallon Coopers Dark Ale prehopped kit - just the LME tin in half the recipe amount of water but with no other fermentables, so basically a toucan. I made this half-batch specifically to grow yeast for a big porter, figured it was cheaper / easier than a huge starter.
Using Denny's favourite Wyeast 1450 yeast. The yeast was 5 months old and took 3 days to arrive on courier, I estimated viability at 34%. Made a 500ml starter and manually shook for a few hours before pitching.
Gravity readings:
OG - 1.042
Day 3 - 1.030
Day 6 - 1.025
Day 8 - 1.024
Day 9 - 1.023 - racked to secondary
Day 11 - 1.020
Day 18 - 1.018
Day 20 - 1.018
I know the reasons why this has stalled - this strain of yeast is slow anyway, it was old yeast and I slightly underpitched, shouldn't have racked to secondary (but I really needed the cake for my porter), swamp cooler has been struggling to keep it warm enough in the cold winter.
What I'm looking for is a course of action to save my batch if I can.
I'm thinking one of these:
1. Wait it out, put on the heat belt and let it warm up - TBH I can't see the gravity dropping any further but who knows.
2. The porter has been in primary 2 weeks using the same yeast - can I scoop a ladle full of healthy yeast cake out of that to try and restart this fermentation?
3. Bottle it anyway in PET bottles with low carbonation (appropriate anyway for a dark ale) and drink it quickly.
Since I toucanned the kit I'm not even sure what FG is supposed to be - I'd welcome any input from people on this. I was expecting to land somewhere around 1.010 - 1.013 or thereabouts, 1.018 just seems a bit too far away for my liking.
I'm in no particular hurry, but it's been 3 weeks now and this iddy biddy low gravity batch is starting to annoy me. I was wanting to have a crack at a RIS sometime soon but if I can't make a 1.042 dark ale then I got some work to do.
SWMBO is going to shut the whole operation down if I get bottle bombs in the house.
Any advice appreciated.
11 litre / 3 Gallon Coopers Dark Ale prehopped kit - just the LME tin in half the recipe amount of water but with no other fermentables, so basically a toucan. I made this half-batch specifically to grow yeast for a big porter, figured it was cheaper / easier than a huge starter.
Using Denny's favourite Wyeast 1450 yeast. The yeast was 5 months old and took 3 days to arrive on courier, I estimated viability at 34%. Made a 500ml starter and manually shook for a few hours before pitching.
Gravity readings:
OG - 1.042
Day 3 - 1.030
Day 6 - 1.025
Day 8 - 1.024
Day 9 - 1.023 - racked to secondary
Day 11 - 1.020
Day 18 - 1.018
Day 20 - 1.018
I know the reasons why this has stalled - this strain of yeast is slow anyway, it was old yeast and I slightly underpitched, shouldn't have racked to secondary (but I really needed the cake for my porter), swamp cooler has been struggling to keep it warm enough in the cold winter.
What I'm looking for is a course of action to save my batch if I can.
I'm thinking one of these:
1. Wait it out, put on the heat belt and let it warm up - TBH I can't see the gravity dropping any further but who knows.
2. The porter has been in primary 2 weeks using the same yeast - can I scoop a ladle full of healthy yeast cake out of that to try and restart this fermentation?
3. Bottle it anyway in PET bottles with low carbonation (appropriate anyway for a dark ale) and drink it quickly.
Since I toucanned the kit I'm not even sure what FG is supposed to be - I'd welcome any input from people on this. I was expecting to land somewhere around 1.010 - 1.013 or thereabouts, 1.018 just seems a bit too far away for my liking.
I'm in no particular hurry, but it's been 3 weeks now and this iddy biddy low gravity batch is starting to annoy me. I was wanting to have a crack at a RIS sometime soon but if I can't make a 1.042 dark ale then I got some work to do.
SWMBO is going to shut the whole operation down if I get bottle bombs in the house.
Any advice appreciated.