Beer Separated???

[ejdischer]

I brewed an Oatmeal Stout the other night. Long story short, I put a 2.5 gallon jug of poland spring in the freezer for the hour of the boil so that I could speed up the cooling of the wort. After the boil, I strained out the hops and gave the wort a quick bath in some cold water in my sink. I then added the wort to the 2.5 gallons of cold water and topped it off so as to make 5 gallons in the carboy. Waited about 1/2 hour and took a reading. Temperature was 60ºF but the thing was the liquid was pretty separated. Part of it was syrupy(is that a word?) and the other part was watery. But since it was 60º I pitched the Wyeast 1084. Hydrometer reading was 1.110. Anyway, it's been 3 days so I decided to take another reading. It's still pretty separated. When I used the wine thief, some syrupy stuff came out and then mostly beer. Hydrometer reading was 1.040. I'm pretty concerned that this batch is just bad. Any thoughts???

 

[homebrewer_99]

So why didn't you stir it together???? That's what the rest of use do...

 

[DUCCCC]

You did stir this up, didn't you?

 

[DUCCCC]

hb99:Jinx!

 

[ejdischer]

Since the carboy top is kind of thin, I didn't think stirring would work so well, so before pitching the yeast, I shook it up a lot for aeration. Then, after I noticed the separation after taking the reading, I shook it some more.

 

[DUCCCC]

Your wort is heavier than water and unless you blend it well you're going to have two different layers. I really had to give mine a pretty active stirring when I topped my couple of gallons boiled wort off with bottled water to make 5 gallons in the primary. It was a lot like Italian salad dressing, and just stirring around in circles didn't mix it up. I almost had to get a "folding" action to get the wort from the bottom of the bucket to blend well with the water at the top. You need to get those two levels blended, but I think at this point you don't really want to aerate any more. You need to get some sort of a paddle that fits in the neck of the carboy, and that's SANITIZED, and mix it up with out making bubbles or oxidizing your brew.

It doesn't sound ruined at all, just giving you weird readings because you don't have an even blend. Just stir it up and put the airlock back on. Check the gravity again in a couple days and then see where you're at.

 

[the_bird]

You absolutely do NOT need to stir the wort at this point. The yeast will find the sugars, trust me! Once fermentation starts, everything's going to be moving around inside, anyway. You just won't know your OG, but with an extract batch, it's essentially impossible to screw that up, anyway.

 

[DUCCCC]

You absolutely do NOT need to stir the wort at this point. The yeast will find the sugars, trust me! Once fermentation starts, everything's going to be moving around inside, anyway. You just won't know your OG, but with an extract batch, it's essentially impossible to screw that up, anyway.

I stand corrected. my bad.