Stuck Fermentation? I made mistakes ...

[BryanG]

I am brewing a Lagunitas IPA clone, BIAB style. WL001 yeast, single pack, craft a brew catalyst fermenter in a fermentation fridge set at 69.

Issue1: I mashed a little high on temp, average temp was about 161, peaked a little bit at 165.

Issue 2: I did not have enough water in my initial boil, OG was 1.074 in the fermenter with only 4.5 gallons, I diluted a with a gallon of distilled water to bring OG down to 1.065.

Issue 3: As I was cleaning the fermentation fridge I left the yeast on top of the fridge and forgot about it. It sat out for about 45 minutes, ambient air temp was 95 in the garage. (What a bobo head).

Once the Wort was down to 70 I pitched the yeast. Inside of 24 hours it was going strong. 48 hours my blow out tube got in the action with vigorous fermentation. 72 hours in things slowed way down, hardly any bubbling. 96 hours and it seems to be at a dead stop, no bubbles in the 4 minutes I sat and watched it. Measured SG is now 1.040.

What to do, wait, swirl, increase temp, pitch another pack of WL001?

Not my finest brew session, but lessons learned every time.

 

[RM-MN]

You can try the swirl, warm it up, and wait but with the mash temperature you list, I think this one is done.

 

[bigplunkett]

My guess is the really hi mash didnt convert well.

 

[bigplunkett]

You could throw brett at it but that will take some time

 

[day_trippr]

Gravity measured with a hydrometer, or...?

Cheers!

 

[BryanG]

measured with a refractometer.

 

[day_trippr]

I had a suspicion.

Did you run your Brix reading from the refractometer through a calculator to get a corrected gravity?
For instance, this Brewer's Friend calculator, brought to us by the owner of HBT.
Use Part 2. Plug in your actual OG, then your current Brix reading, and it'll pop out the corrected (approximate) current SG and ABV...

Cheers!

 

[BryanG]

day tripper, thanks for that. So using that part 2, with a correction of 1, seeing I do not have 10 samples to calibrate, the calculator pops out OG of 15.9 P (1.065), FG corrected of 6.42 P (1.025), and a ABV of 5.26%. Not as bad as I feared. That yeast screamed through that sugar fast and furious, wow.

I guess I'll add hops this weekend and dry hop it for a bit and keg in a week or so later.

 

[BryanG]

I dryhopped the beer, left them in for 2 weeks. Kegging today and the FG per my refractometer is now 1.031. It looks like this beer has some punch to it after all. So much to learn.