fermentation stoped way early?

[rookie-brewer]

brewing some ginger beer this is the 2nd batch 1st batch came out fine at about 6.5-7%ABV

only change is I changed yeast from us-05 to copper tun ginger beer yeast I saw it in the shop and thought why not give it ago since I'm making ginger beer

I made the wort on Sunday night and pitched the yeast at 24C by Monday morning I had great air lock activity still had great activity Tuesday night. now Wednesday morning air lock is stable equal amount of vodka in both chambers no bubbles checked for leaks and there are no obvious leaks and no signs of fermentation looking at the wort ether. wort has been sitting steady at 21C

og was 0.050 and now its at 0.040
any ideas could it be the yeast ? haven't been brewing long and never had this before

 

[Revvy]

What your airlock does or doesn't do is irrevelant, it's a vent for EXCESS Co2, not a fermentation gauge. As fermentation slows down excess co2 isn't necessarily needing to be released, heck sometimes airlocks never bubble, or as shown in videos bubble in empty fermenters.

Leave you beer alone, come back in a week. You pitched yeast on Sunday? What day is this? Beers take a week or more to reach final gravity. Everything sounds fine for a 10 point drop in 2 days. You don't need to hover over it or worry about it, you just need to not think of the airlock as anything more important than just a way to keep beer off the ceiling.

 

[GuldTuborg]

Is this a beer beer, as in malt makes the main source of fermentables, or is it a sugar & ginger kind of product? You'd need to go from 1.050 to 1.000 to get 6.5% ABV. Was that the OG of your last beer, too?

If this is a sugar and ginger concoction, and you only get that kind of gravity drop over 3 days, there may be an issue. What's the recipe? How much yeast did you pitch? How are you measuring gravity?

 

[rookie-brewer]

Is this a beer beer, as in malt makes the main source of fermentables, or is it a sugar & ginger kind of product? You'd need to go from 1.050 to 1.000 to get 6.5% ABV. Was that the OG of your last beer, too?

If this is a sugar and ginger concoction, and you only get that kind of gravity drop over 3 days, there may be an issue. What's the recipe? How much yeast did you pitch? How are you measuring gravity?

recipe:
1.5kg sugar
400gm raisins
5 table spoons fresh ginger root grated
juce of 8 lemons

method: 1.grate ginger ad one cup of the sugar to a pot and a cup of water add ginger and heat until sugar is devolved allow to steep for 2-3hrs

2.add the rest of the ingredients to your boil pot and strain your ginger mix in (disgard the solids) ad 10lrs of water and boil 60min

3. add 5 ltrs of cold filtered water to help cool for a total of 15lts of wort- once cool add to fermenter and pitch yeast I used rehydrated copper tun ginger beer yeast

gravity measured with a hydrometer but I'm new to using one so could have it wrong? the 50 mark is 0.050 and 40 is 0.040 and so on as far as I understand?

 

[GuldTuborg]

recipe:
1.5kg sugar
400gm raisins
5 table spoons fresh ginger root grated
juce of 8 lemons

method: 1.grate ginger ad one cup of the sugar to a pot and a cup of water add ginger and heat until sugar is devolved allow to steep for 2-3hrs

2.add the rest of the ingredients to your boil pot and strain your ginger mix in (disgard the solids) ad 10lrs of water and boil 60min

3. add 5 ltrs of cold filtered water to help cool for a total of 15lts of wort- once cool add to fermenter and pitch yeast I used rehydrated copper tun ginger beer yeast

Never heard of that yeast. Did you use any nutrient? There could be pH issues (though doubtful), nutrient issues, other issues going on. Raisins should take care of most nutrient needs, but all yeast are different. I'd let it ride, as revvy said. See where it is in a couple more days. Gravity is dropping, for now, so something is going right.

Very odd about the 60 min boil. Wonder what that's all about.

gravity measured with a hydrometer but I'm new to using one so could have it wrong? the 50 mark is 0.050 and 40 is 0.040 and so on as far as I understand?

Probably, but it depends upon the hydrometer. It should tell you the range on it, which will help make sense of the numbers. Just find a video about reading a hydrometer for brewing. That should help.

 

[Revvy]

If I'm converting KG and Liters correctly, you are using 3.48 pounds of sugar, in 1.32 gallons of water. If I've entered that in beersmith correctly your original gravity should read 1.117 (maybe a little less since I didn't factor in the cup of water.)

GuldTuborg, does that seem right for the gravity? I'm having trouble setting batch volume for that small of a batch that I'm not boiling down, and I have a headache and can't think straight.

if that was the case, and you've dropped to 1.040 that's a fast ferment of basically a sugar wash.

The Abv right now is 10.11%?

Not factoring in the sugar from the raisins (because headache.)

If this is a high test yeast you probably burned through the majority of fermentation in the first 24 hours or so.

 

[GuldTuborg]

If I'm converting KG and Liters correctly, you are using 3.48 pounds of sugar, in 1.32 gallons of water. If I've entered that in beersmith correctly your original gravity should read 1.117 (maybe a little less since I didn't factor in the cup of water.)

GuldTuborg, does that seem right for the gravity? I'm having trouble setting batch volume for that small of a batch that I'm not boiling down, and I have a headache and can't think straight.

The batch is for 15L total, if I read it correctly, so that's pushing 4 gallons. If we assume 3.5lbs sugar (1.5kg x 2.2 = 3.3lbs + raisins), that's 3.5lbs x 45ppg = 157.5 gravity points / 4 gallons = 1.039 predicted OG.

Revvy, I'm glad you got us checking the math on this one. So, if that's all right, the actual OG would be ever so slightly north of 1.040 when ginger was added. That's not accounting for any changes due to lemon juice, as I don't know what the SG of lemon juice is. The point is, there may not be any fermentation going on at all. It might be time to consider repitching.

Unless, of course, gravity was measured and confirmed to be 1.050 beforehand. Then the math doesn't matter. That might have been if the water additions just strictly count how much is added. Boil off volume loss could get us to 1.050 easily.

 

[rookie-brewer]

the recipe was given to me by the old lady next door
it said to boil but no time so I decided on 60mins as from what ive read most worts are that long boiled could probably knock that back abit ?

yes you guys are right og was 1.050 not 0.050 and its currently at 1.040

should I re pitch with some us-05 or just leave it for a bit? and check it in a few days

as I said the 1st batch worked and tastes good maybe a little to high ABV 6.5-7% as 2 750ml bottles gets ya good and tipsy as I found out last night probably better aiming for 5% ish Abv

as my name suggests I'm a true rookie only got the basic home brew gear 4 weeks ago so realy no nothing apart from reading and watching YouTube and what of learnt in the short tome of being a member of the forum

 

[Revvy]

Don't add any more yeast.... Fermentation is probably still going on, as much as it will. Don't do anything for a week....on sunday take another gravity reading. Then two days later take another...if the gravity is the same then bottle it. Throwing more yeast at something won't fix anything, because there's nothing's more than likely wrong...except you're impatient.

It's only been 48 hours....relax.