Attenuation Problems

[DeathBrewer]

I'm getting kinda peeved. My Gulden Draak won't ferment any further. it's been stuck at 1.040 SG forever. i made the mistake of racking it too early and i couldn't get it going again.

now my Blood Ale stopped at 1.028 (from 1.074) which seems far too high. It still tastes a little sweet, too.

I gave both these beers a swirl to try to get the yeast back in suspension. I repitched twice for the Gulden Draak (the first time it worked a bit, but stopped at 1.040). I then said screw it and pitched champagne yeast in the Gulden Draak and that did absolutely nothing.

I didn't have this problem before. don't know what I'm doing...I've only had this problem recently and only with higher gravity beers.

My LHBS says i should swirl the carboys every day. that doesn't seem right to me, but i guess i'll give it a shot. any other idears??

 

[Evan!]

I'm getting kinda peeved. My Gulden Draak won't ferment any further. it's been stuck at 1.040 SG forever. i made the mistake of racking it too early and i couldn't get it going again.

now my Blood Ale stopped at 1.028 (from 1.074) which seems far too high. It still tastes a little sweet, too.

I gave both these beers a swirl to try to get the yeast back in suspension. I repitched twice for the Gulden Draak (the first time it worked a bit, but stopped at 1.040). I then said screw it and pitched champagne yeast in the Gulden Draak and that did absolutely nothing.

I didn't have this problem before. don't know what I'm doing...I've only had this problem recently and only with higher gravity beers.

My LHBS says i should swirl the carboys every day. that doesn't seem right to me, but i guess i'll give it a shot. any other idears??

Every day? Whatever. You can, but it's not necessary. Question: what are your aeration techniques? I never got below 1.020 FG until I got my AHS aeration kit. If all you're doing is swirling it, then that might be your problem.

As for these batches...try beano on the gulden draak. The other one...you can try repitching, but I don't know what your recipe was, or your mash schedule. Maybe you had a lot of unfermentables in there. If you mashed too high, you might have created more unfermentable sugars than you wanted. Just some possible culprits.

Also, do you make starters? How big? Do you use yeast nutrient?

 

[DeathBrewer]

i think BOTH had servomyces. i know the blood ale did.

i used a 2 liter starter with teh gulden draak and a 1 liter for the blood ale.

i aerated the gulden draak for an hour with my aquarium pump, 25 minutes for the blood ale. i aerated the gulden draak again for another 30 minutes when i repitched the second time (might have screwed up there).

i don't believe there are a whole lot of unfermentables in my blood ale, but i'll check when i get home. i know there was some malto dextrin. i brew extract, also, so there's definitely going to be a higher FG than if i did AG, but i still don't think it should be THAT high. (what is 74-28, 60% attenuation?)

beano might be my last resort. i guess i'll shake her up for a week or so and if i don't see any action, i'll throw some in. i want to finish this one...it REALLY tastes like a gulden draak, it's just way to sweet.

my blood ale should finish. it was the dry english ale yeast so it should be able to ferment out. it just stalled for a bit, and i think it will get going again. i accidently added far too much extract to this batch anyway, it's supposed to be 6.66% ABV, and it's going to be over 7%. don't know how i calculated that one wrong. oh well.

another question...what's the best formula for figuring out attenuation? i've seen several and they vary greatly.

 

[bull]

throw it away and start over ,when the wort cools to the correct temp ,pour it into the fermentor from high distance make it foam up ,itll work ,when you pitch the yeast within minutes the foam will go away and it will start fermenting within 10 hours .

 

[DeathBrewer]

uh...what are you talking about? i can't tell if you're joking in that sentence you just wrote...

 

[antoniost]

DeathBrewer:

I just tried Gulden Draak for the first time last night. I was amazed. I had it at the Publick House in Brookline, MA which is also amazing for their selection of beer. I am also interested in making a clone. Could you share your recipe with us?

 

[homebrewer_99]

uh...what are you talking about? i can't tell if you're joking in that sentence you just wrote...

I think he was talking about aeration...

Since it's going nowhere fast I'd make another starter and pitch it in a day or two.

 

[WOP31]

I second the beano, i have a saison that didn't get as low as i was shooting for and I crushed up two of them and tossed them in and they did they trick

Cheers

 

[DeathBrewer]

it's come down even further with the champagne yeast now. i only have about 10 points to go. i think i'm going to rack to tertiary after i make a 2 liter starter with my original yeast and that should finish her up. thanks for the suggestions...i'm going to try and avoid beano but may come back to it if this doesn't work

 

[Got Trub?]

another question...what's the best formula for figuring out attenuation? i've seen several and they vary greatly.

I'm only aware of one: (OG-FG)/OG * 100

In terms of your stuck ferments your aeration sounds fine. You could keep aerating for 12-24 hours after pitching. If you use Jamils pitching rate calculator at: http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html, I think you will find you are severely underpitching.

 

[DeathBrewer]

thx, i found a good formula and added it to my ABV calculator.

i wouldn't say i "severely" underpitched...according to the calculator, i would need 2.22 L starter. i made a 2 Liter starter to begin with, but i fuxored that when i racked it too soon. it did say to start with two vials, but i think it did alright anyway.

hopefully this is the last time i'll have to mess with it.