nicklawmusic
Well-Known Member
A couple of weeks ago, I brewed what was meant to be an BIAB, all grain Irish Red. I took a pre-boil gravity at 20C which came to 1.046, however, my SG was only 38C at 24C (some online calculations tell me the readjustment is 1.039 and some 1.040).
This was the first time I'd made a yeast starter as I was using White Labs Irish Ale yeast. The 2L starter was made using 200G of light DME. There appeared to be some foaming, etc, though (because of time limitations) I'd had to make this up 48 hours earlier, rather than the recommended 24.
Before pitching the starter (I didn't decant my starter, so the 2L - which was given a vigorous shake - of yeast and wort when into the main batch), I aerated my wort by opening the valve on my kettle and allowing it to splash into my fermenting bucket below. I didn't give it a vigorous shake but am starting to wish I had done so.
After five days of fermentation, I took another reading at 18C of 1.020 as the airlock had stopped within a couple of days. I wasn't overly concerned but thought last night that I'd better check that my fermentation was still happening.
When I took another reading at 18C, I was alarmed that the hydrometer was only reading 1.016. I've only gone down 4 points and I'm on day 12!
After doing some panicked research online, I sanitized a brewing spoon, opened the fermentor and gave it a good swirl without aerating it. I have also warmed the fermentor up to 22C. There was some airlock action last night, but it appears to have stopped now.
Is there anything else I can do to help it ferment out a little more? Should I purchase and pitch more yeast? Should I just leave it and hope for the best? Bottling night is a week tomorrow.
Also, does anyone have any idea why my pre-boil gravity would be higher than my SG? Seems kind of odd!
To to note one more thing on that, I did my BIAB mash, then raised the temp to 87C for 20 minutes, covered, and returned to do the full boil several hours later (about 4 1/2) as I had some time restrictions with this as well.
Finally, here is the recipe. I've adapted it from the recipe that I originally did my calculations on to reflect, what would appear, to be the efficiency with this batch, yielding such a low SG.
According to the original recipe, I was supposed to get an SG of 1.050 with an efficiency of 74%, which is what I normally get from my BIAB.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/162917/love-ran-red
Any help would be appreciated.
This was the first time I'd made a yeast starter as I was using White Labs Irish Ale yeast. The 2L starter was made using 200G of light DME. There appeared to be some foaming, etc, though (because of time limitations) I'd had to make this up 48 hours earlier, rather than the recommended 24.
Before pitching the starter (I didn't decant my starter, so the 2L - which was given a vigorous shake - of yeast and wort when into the main batch), I aerated my wort by opening the valve on my kettle and allowing it to splash into my fermenting bucket below. I didn't give it a vigorous shake but am starting to wish I had done so.
After five days of fermentation, I took another reading at 18C of 1.020 as the airlock had stopped within a couple of days. I wasn't overly concerned but thought last night that I'd better check that my fermentation was still happening.
When I took another reading at 18C, I was alarmed that the hydrometer was only reading 1.016. I've only gone down 4 points and I'm on day 12!
After doing some panicked research online, I sanitized a brewing spoon, opened the fermentor and gave it a good swirl without aerating it. I have also warmed the fermentor up to 22C. There was some airlock action last night, but it appears to have stopped now.
Is there anything else I can do to help it ferment out a little more? Should I purchase and pitch more yeast? Should I just leave it and hope for the best? Bottling night is a week tomorrow.
Also, does anyone have any idea why my pre-boil gravity would be higher than my SG? Seems kind of odd!
To to note one more thing on that, I did my BIAB mash, then raised the temp to 87C for 20 minutes, covered, and returned to do the full boil several hours later (about 4 1/2) as I had some time restrictions with this as well.
Finally, here is the recipe. I've adapted it from the recipe that I originally did my calculations on to reflect, what would appear, to be the efficiency with this batch, yielding such a low SG.
According to the original recipe, I was supposed to get an SG of 1.050 with an efficiency of 74%, which is what I normally get from my BIAB.
http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/162917/love-ran-red
Any help would be appreciated.
