Anyone have wlp833 finish in 5 days?

[Jcruse]

So, I'm not entirely sure what's going on here, but here's my situation:

I brewed 5 gallons of an Oktoberfest on Friday, which went fairly well, I missed my OG by 3 points, but still a healthy 1.057. I mashed a little higher this time at 154, since my last batch mashed at 152 finished a little low at 1.010 (using w-34/70). I was able to chill it to about 75 with my ground water, and then placed it in my fermentation chamber overnight to get it down to 50 degrees. The following morning I oxygenated for 2 minutes and pitched a 2L stirplate-starter that had been cold-crashed, decanted, and left in the same chamber overnight, so it should have been at 50 degrees too.

I then set the chamber to 52, and it took a good 24 hours to get active fermentation going (based on airlock activity). About 12-24 hours later a pretty healthy krausen formed, and it bubbled away pretty consistently for the next couple of days. Last night I noticed airlock activity was pretty quiet, and the krausen had fallen. I went to check gravity (4.5 days after pitching), and my reading came in at 1.014! Beersmith estimated a 1.017 FG for the recipe. I was expecting it to be about 50-70% complete, not 100%.

Now, it's possible my refractometer calibration and alcohol adjustment calcs were off. I used Beersmith, Northern Brewer's calc, and Refracto, and all were between 1.008 and 1.015. Original Brix was 12, which based on my calibration with hyrdometer = 1.057. Current Brix is 6.9

I started ramping up temp for the diacetyl rest this morning, but I don't have many, if any, gravity points left for the yeast to really go through/clean-up.

I know I'll probably get a lot of requests to take a hydrometer reading to confirm the refractometer, but my Turkey baster sucks (dribbles all over the place), and my testing cylinder is too large (requires almost a pint to get the hydrometer to float). Before I go out and get a new thief/cylinder, has anyone seen this type of fast finish from wlp833 at proper lager primary temps?

 

[WI_Wino]

No experience with the yeast but a brix of 12 = a SG of 1.048, not 1.057. Maybe that is throwing off your calculations?

 

[Jcruse]

No experience with the yeast but a brix of 12 = a SG of 1.048, not 1.057. Maybe that is throwing off your calculations?

Yeah...my refractometer is possibly suspect. It's calibrated based on my last batch of IPA, which measured at 15.9 brix, but the hydrometer said 1.077. Using that correction factor, 12 brix = 1.057 (which my hydrometer also confirmed). But that's all unfermented wort.

Maybe I'll just sanitize my hydrometer and toss it in the carboy instead of dribbling beer all over my garage trying to take a sample.

 

[kh54s10]

I can't say, because I have never taken a gravity reading before 14 days. I did my last pilsner and got lazy. I decided if ales were good without a secondary I would do the same with the lager. I ran it 14 days at 50 degrees ramped up to 60 degrees over a day stayed there for 2 days ramped down to 35 degrees over the next 3 weeks. It turned out delicious.

It seem your calibrations or conversions are in error. I have read that trying to convert for the presence of alcohol is quite inaccurate. My experience confirms this.

 

[Jcruse]

Well, I tossed my hydrometer into the carboy, and it read 1.019, which is better, but still faster than I expected. Looks like I'll have to buy another hydrometer or two (never thought of just leaving it in the carboy before...makes taking gravity measurements super easy!)

 

[Jcruse]

I guess the yeast DID finish in 5 days, because the SG has been stuck at 1.019 for the past week, during the diacetyl rest at 67 degrees. I even roused the yeast by stirring gently, and still no drop in FG.

That leaves me with an attenuation of only 65% (1.057 to 1.019). The last time I did this recipe, I mashed at 152 (instead of the 154 for this batch) to give the beer a little more body. I also used w-34/70 last time, and it went from 1.057 to 1.010. (82% attenuation)

Too many variables changing to make any decisive conclusion, but a 2 degree change shouldn't have changed fermentability that much. it seems wlp833 is susceptible to stuck fermentation?

Should I have raised the temp to d-rest earlier???

 

[beersk]

I don't know what you're worried about. If you did everything right, sometimes the yeast finishes up super fast. Last year, I brewed an oktoberfest with 34/70 that finished in a few days and I kegged after only 1 week in the primary. ONE WEEK. That beer turned out amazingly. I pitched a large amount of fresh slurry, COLD at like 46F, let rise to about 50. It went gangbusters and was ready to go pretty fast.

 

[Jcruse]

I don't know what you're worried about. If you did everything right, sometimes the yeast finishes up super fast. Last year, I brewed an oktoberfest with 34/70 that finished in a few days and I kegged after only 1 week in the primary. ONE WEEK. That beer turned out amazingly. I pitched a large amount of fresh slurry, COLD at like 46F, let rise to about 50. It went gangbusters and was ready to go pretty fast.

I'm "worried" because it finished super fast but also with too high a FG. It should have gone down to 1.015 or so, but got stuck at 1.020. This is a high flocculating yeast, which sometimes don't have very good attenuation. I'm hoping to get some tips on how to get this yeast to finish lower...

 

[3toes]

I'm "worried" because it finished super fast but also with too high a FG. It should have gone down to 1.015 or so, but got stuck at 1.020. This is a high flocculating yeast, which sometimes don't have very good attenuation. I'm hoping to get some tips on how to get this yeast to finish lower...

My best guess would have been to start your d-rest a tad sooner.

I'm actually about to start a festbier with 833... now I feel like I better be prepared to watch it like a hawk once fermentation gets going.

 

[beersk]

I'm "worried" because it finished super fast but also with too high a FG. It should have gone down to 1.015 or so, but got stuck at 1.020. This is a high flocculating yeast, which sometimes don't have very good attenuation. I'm hoping to get some tips on how to get this yeast to finish lower...

Oh, crap. Sorry, man, I missed that part. It's always annoying when this kind of thing happens especially when you seemingly did everything right. The only thing I can think is your mash temp was too high - 154 isn't all that high, but maybe your thermometer is out of calibration, or it was the grain bill and you needed to mash longer perhaps. Sometimes, it's just a yeast thing...they just don't want to finish where you think they should.

 

[3toes]

Also I know it's completely anecdotal and yeast-starters are a different animal due to warmer temps... but both my starter and my step-up with wlp833 were super quick to get going.

Here's a shot of my step-up last night after only an hour on the stir plate:

So maybe 833 is just a steroid of a lager strain...

 

[rrkss32]

The last 4 times I brewed my octoberfest, primary fermentation was finished by day 5 (OG = 1.054) with a fermentation temperature at 52 degrees so this does not surprise me. Just proceed with your diacetyl rest like normal, it might drop another 1 or 2 points through the rest. My Octoberfests have a tendency to hit a FG of 1.014 0 1.015.

My experience with lager starters are similar to yours. WLP 830 goes from a slant to a pitchable 2.5 L starter in 4 days for me while an Ale Yeast (WY 1056) might take over a week to build up to a Liter Starter.