Fermentation Problem - Ginger Beer

[Damien_22]

Hi, I've brewed 1 batch of beer and everything went perfectly (18 months ago). I had a crack at ginger beer a bit over a week ago and here's the story to date.

I used a 1kg can of syrup and 1kg of sugar. I didn't take a starting gravity, however all I have noticed to date is some condensation under the lid and a continuing gravity of about 1018 for 3 or 4 days in a row (I'm now about 7 or 8 days in). I am presuming the yeast I used which came with the can was no good and that if I want fermentation I need to reptich the yeast.

I would really appreciate some advice (in very much layman's terms). I'm no good on anything technical, I just want some alcoholic ginger beer.

Thanks for the advice of some in another section of the forum but I'd appreciate any other advice. Is yeast just yeast, in other words can I use the suff you buy at the supermarket, or does it need to be specialised?

Cheers.

 

[Sir Humpsalot]

It doesn't *need* to be specialized yeast, but since it only costs about a dollar, and because the results may be so questionable if you don't use something intended for alcohol production, I think it would be downright silly to go with anything else.

 

[Damien_22]

So you think I should re-pitch?

 

[Evan!]

Definitely. Use beer yeast. We're not making sourdough here.

 

[Yooper]

I'm the resident math-idiot, so I'm not able to give you exact figures. But here are my thoughts-

Without knowing how much water you used, and the original s.g., the s.g. you have now is really worthless. I'll assume a gallon of water? But if you used sugar and "syrup", and now your s.g. is 1.018, it sounds like it's done. What would the theoretical og be? Look at the "syrup" container- it should tell you how many points in fermentables it has (or at least grams of sugar). Add that to the points in 1 KG of sugar. That would be your guestimate of o.g. We need someone to help with this- I'm useless in this.

Pitching beer yeast in a liquid with a s.g. of 1.018 isn't going to yield anything alcoholic. Even wine yeast would be less than 2% alcohol if you pitched it now.

Taste it- does it taste "done"?

Lorena

 

[RoaringBrewer]

Yes, this is very tough to determine what is going on with the details provided, so I'm going to make some assumptions.

I'm going to assume you brewed 5 gallons of beer. I'm going to assume you didn't take a initial gravity reading. And I know that 1lb. = 2.2kg.

So, with that I went into beersmith software and added 2.2lb amber liquid extract and 2.2lb table sugar. Beersmith told me your original gravity should have been in the neighbourhood of 1.036, with a final near 1.009.

If it was indeed on target at 1.036, then you only achieved ~50% attenuation from your yeast, which seems low to me, but you never know. If it was very old dry yeast and only 3g package or something, that may be the case. Either way 1.018 is slightly high for a FG (unless you are brewing an imperial stout or something that finished > 1.020), but you may very well be able to bottle these without bombing...

Now your only problem is with a OG of 1.036 and FG of 1.018, your beer will be about 2.3% alcohol. Not very potent...

 

[Brewing Clamper]

I think everyone's overlooking the main issue here: 1 beer in 18 months!? We have to do something about that...

 

[Damien_22]

thanks this helps

there's 23 litres in the tub - the can said to swirl it each day so i give it a bit of a roll and get bubbles when i do this

its down to about 1016 now i think - it was only supposed to be 3% alcohol when finished, but it also says fermentation is finished when the gravity hits steady below 1005

id say its fermenting really really slowly - is this possible

oh and don't worry, i'm doing a stout as soon as this one is done