Boston Honey Ale question

[mlail]

All,

I still consider myself new to the hobby and have had some issues on our last two batches. Let me start with this batches question or thoughts.

I cooked the wart like one normally would and paid strict attention to temps and times. After cooling the wart I put it into the fermenting bucket and closed things up. Like expected I observed the bubbles being release in the air lock with the first 24 hours. Three days later it stopped. I opened the lid on the fermenter a couple days later and could still see lots of foam at the top.

I waited another day without any bubbles so added a small batch of sugar to the mix and stirred it in. I got bubbles out of the air lock in the next few hours. Three days later and everything stopped. Most of the foam has settled and no new signs of release in the fermenter. Today I checked the final gravity and it was at 1.00 which is about .04 lower than the instructions. Since I added the extra sugar I expected a higher alcohol content so if I understand it correctly, the gravity should be lower?

Any thoughts, did I mess the batch up? I plan on bottling it tomorrow if the gravity is the same.

 

[mlail]

Anyone?

 

[Quaker]

3 days of airlock activity and then none isn't unusual. That's why a hydrometer reading is the best gauge for completion.

I'm not sure why you added sugar at that point, but so be it. Adding sugar will not raise for final gravity. It raises your original gravity. Yeast can fully eat those simple sugars and therefore your final gravity should be the same with or without the sugar.

Assuming you used an ale yeast, I don't trust your 1.000 gravity reading.
How did you draw your sample?
Did you gently mix (avoid aerating too much) before taking it?
Did you use a hydrometer, not a refractometer for the measurement?

Even if it's reached the expected final gravity (I assume 1.004 from your post), I'd still leave it for at least 1 week longer to clear a bit, and let the yeast clean up some of their byproducts.

If you confirm it truly is 1.000, well then definitely taste it. Assuming you were doing an malt extract kit there is no way it got there unless you have an infection of wild yeast. In which case you need to review your cleaning and sanitization practices, dump this batch, and consider it a lesson learned. Don't bother bottling it.

 

[mlail]

Quaker,

I took another reading today with the hygrometer and it was dead level with the 1.000 line on the hygrometer.

Yes it is a kit from Brewmasters Select. The instructions put the terminal gravity at 1.005 - 1.009. The kit included 3lbs wheat DME, some hops, 2lbs honey... We clean like crazy and use star sans.

The starting Gravity was 1.040 but the instructions said it would be 1.045. We used Safale US05 11.5g yeast. Fermentation started just under a day at 63F.

So I opened the lid and used a turkey blaster to remove the tasting amount. I use the same method to pull the beer into a testing tub for checking the gravity.
The beer might have a slight sour smell that quickly went away and the beer tastes OK for flat beer. I took a picture in case anyone can tell by looking. It's been 2 weeks in fermentation.

Thoughts?

 

[Quaker]

Wow: 3lb DME and 2lbs honey. That'll be a dry beer. Still should have been higher final gravity, but it's definitely done with primary.

I'd still opt to leave it a week before bottling as mentioned before.

 

[RM-MN]

When you opened the fermenter and stirred in the sugar you might have introduced a wild yeast that was able to bring the final gravity lower than what was predicted. Don't do that in the future. Once you have put the wort into the fermenter and aerated it, pitch the yeast and put the lid on. Ale yeasts ferment quickly and the initial part of the ferment where it offgasses CO2 can be done it 2 to 4 days but the ferment isn't over yet, as the yeast need to eat some of the intermediate products of fermentation. Complete fermentation should take somewhere near a week but at that time there will be a lot of yeast suspended and you want to give the beer time for that to settle. If you add the correct amount of yeast and control the temperature during the fermentation very well, you beer could be done and ready to keg in 10 days. I'd suggest you give it more time if you are bottling to make sure that there is no more CO2 being produced as that can cause gushers or bottle bombs. It won't hurt your beer to give it more time yet. As time goes on, more yeast settles out and the flavors begin to meld or mature. I typically leave my beer in the primary fermenter for 3 to 4 weeks before I bottle and more time doesn't seem to hurt it at all.

 

[mlail]

Thank you for your replies. I believe that waiting a another week is the correct direction at this time. You know when we start a batch we hate to give up on it and waiting a week is nothing. Maybe in another 5 days I will attempt to cold crash the beer to make sure that nothing is left floating.

Thanks

 

[JimRausch]

With almost 40% of the fermentables honey, I'm not surprised it went down to 1.000. Honey is 100% fermentable, so it's like you added 40% table sugar. So, in other words, I think your formula (I'm not sure what to call it- mead/ale, ale/mead?) did just what it was supposed to. I agree- leave it alone for a week or 2 to finish up and mellow out a little, then cold crash and bottle. Let us know how it turns out.

 

[mlail]

For the curious people, the beer turned out great. No signs of wild yeasts and the beer tastes great. It is a light beer (Color), not a large head, in fact the head is less than expected but the taste tells me that there is plenty of CO2. You know the effervescence.

Thanks for your guidance!