Belgian Trippple help!!!!

[1mooseknuckle]

I recently brewed a Belgian Triple and had an expected volcano of fermentation for a day or two, after a week the fermentation had slowed, but not stopped. One of my brewing buddies (who happens to brew very good beer for the last several years) told me not to wait as it was probably feeding off glycol and it was time to put it into a second carboy, actually I'm doing it in a keg that I purged all the air out of but I am concerned that the fermentation may not have been complete. Am I screwed? or should I just wait and see.
P.S. the keg is in the fridge at a low temp, should I leave it there or have it in a cool, but not cold place while it matures?
P.S.S. O.G. and finish gravity were checked.

 

[fatnoah]

Is your FG close to the expected FG? Has the gravity remained stable for a couple of days? What temps were you fermenting at? High gravity beers like Belgian triples can definitely take more than a week to finish fermenting. I just bottled a triple that took 3 weeks before it was done. I started fermentation around 64 and let it slowly rise up to 70 for the last 1.5 weeks and it finished right at 1.012 where I was expecting it. If your beer still has a high gravity reading (something in the 1.020s) and you rack to a keg and drop the temperature you are going to be left with a sweet beer.

 

[RM-MN]

Your buddy can brew good beer and still be wrong. A triple is a high gravity beer and as the yeast chew up the sugars (yes, the volcano is caused by that) they continuously produce alcohol which is poisonous to them. As the level of alcohol goes up the activity of the yeast slows but continues until the level of toxicity is so high that they cannot continue. During the time they are giving off the CO2 they are also producing intermediate products like acetaldehyde which they can break down later but at a much slower pace. When you transferred the yeast were likely still in that phase. You did transfer a lot of yeast which will continue to work but it may take longer and there may not be enough to finish the break down. Temperature of the ferment also is important. You want it to be very near the bottom of the yeast's preferred range to start until the ferment slows but then it helps to get them warmer to get them to finish the job and do the cleanup.

 

[homebrewdad]

Your buddy can brew good beer and still be wrong. A triple is a high gravity beer and as the yeast chew up the sugars (yes, the volcano is caused by that) they continuously produce alcohol which is poisonous to them. As the level of alcohol goes up the activity of the yeast slows but continues until the level of toxicity is so high that they cannot continue. During the time they are giving off the CO2 they are also producing intermediate products like acetaldehyde which they can break down later but at a much slower pace. When you transferred the yeast were likely still in that phase. You did transfer a lot of yeast which will continue to work but it may take longer and there may not be enough to finish the break down. Temperature of the ferment also is important. You want it to be very near the bottom of the yeast's preferred range to start until the ferment slows but then it helps to get them warmer to get them to finish the job and do the cleanup.

Listen to this excellent advice.

 

[beergolf]

Did you do a gravity reading? Because now that you transfered the beer and cooled it the fermentation is over. Belgian yeasts can start off fast but then take a long time to get the last few points of attenuation.

Belgian yeasts just stop when they are cooled.

Straight from the Chris White of White Labs about Belgian yeasts.....

"When you cool them, they stop. They go into survival mode. You can try rousing them, raising the tempersture, but they won't start again. You just have to add new yeast."

I agree with RM-MN. Your buddy may make good beer, but he is definitely wrong on this one.One week is way too soon to transfer to a secondary. And definitely too soon to cool it down.

If you are not at FG you really need to get the temp up and add new yeast to finish it up.

 

[1mooseknuckle]

Thank you all for the advice. I will pitch some new yeast and hope for the best.

 

[RM-MN]

I did a Belgian Wit that had the airlock bubbling at the 2 week mark so I did some searching with Google and found a post asking about the yeast I was using (Wyeast 3944) by a guy whose screen name was D Conn (anybody heard of him) and the answer was to warm up the beer to get it to finish. The temperature suggested was 90 F. I got mine up to 83 F. and on the third day it was done. The only problem was that instead of the FG of 1.016 as calculated it was 1.006. Sample at one week in the bottle was quite good.

 

[helibrewer]

Thank you all for the advice. I will pitch some new yeast and hope for the best.

I would make a starter for the new yeast, you are putting it in a high alcohol, zero oxygen environment and it is not going to be happy. 2-3 grams of FermAid K would also benefit the new yeast.

 

[phuff7129]

You didn't mention your OG and FG numbers. If you are doing a tripel to style then you would be expecting roughly 85% apparent attenuation. You want to dry that baby out. I would do some math before you just toss in some more yeast. I would be interested to know what yeast you used, how fresh was it, did you make a starter, how big was the starter. I definitely want to know OG and FG so I can figure out how much more I need to attenuate it. Also did you use any simple sugars in the beer? Table or candi sugar? That should be enough info to calculate how many more yeast cells you will need to pitch to get it to where you want it.