Gravity of 1.022 after 22 days??

[coopd3ville]

I brewed up an IPA on 5/30 the recepite is:

4 Lbs of Amber LME
3 Lbs of Light DME
1 Lbs of Extra Light DME
2 Oz. Casacde
1 Oz. Columbus
1 Oz. UK kent Golding
Also added some scotch soaked oak chips to the primary

The OG was 1.070. I used the smaller smack pack of Wyeast Brit Ale 2. When I activated the pack the night before brew day it did not seam to swell as much as previous ones have. I add the yeast when the wort was cooled. I was not sure if the yeast was going to work that great so I picked up the larger smack pack of Wyeast Brit Ale 2 that night and added it the next day. Fermentation started by the next evening and last for about a week and a half. I racked the IPA to a secondary on 6/21 and the gravity was 1.022. I thought that the gravity should be lower than that? Isn't 1.022 a little high to bottle? Must of my other brews have been much closer to the 1.015 area?



Coopd3ville

 

[android]

well, you'll get told to check the gravity again in a few days. if no change, then your fermentation has either stalled or it's done. i doubt if you'd be the first to bottle with a SG of 1.022.

 

[passedpawn]

Not too high to bottle, and not too high to drink!

If you want to experiment a bit, you might try adding some Amylase Enzyme. You can get this at brew shops online, and maybe your local one. This WILL do the trick. It might also go too far for your style.

 

[coopd3ville]

Thanks for the info. I have never used Amylase Enzyme. I will look into that.

Thanks

 

[petep1980]

I usually get bad attenuation with extract beers. Your gravity is better than fine I think.

 

[Gremlyn]

If those gravity measurements are adjusted for temp, then you're sitting at 6.4% ABV, which could mean your yeasties don't want to go any more. When start higher, you tend to end up higher.

 

[XXguy]

Before you go drying out the beer with Amylase enzyme - calculate what your final gravity should have been. A 1.070 starting gravity is pretty big, especially when you didn't make any starter. Most people would say anything over 1.045 or 1.050 requires a starter for full attenuation.

If your yeast was rated for 73% attenuation - you're almost there.

 

[phatuna]

If your still at 022 in a couple of days, I agree w/ XXguy in that you didn't use enough yeast. There is a helpful yeast pitching calculator link somewhere around here, but I bet that it would tell you that you should have used 2 smack packs or the very least made a big starter for an OG of 1.070

 

[carbon111]

I used the smaller smack pack of Wyeast Brit Ale 2.

The "smaller" pack????

If it said "Propagator" on the packet then you way underpitched.

 

[coopd3ville]

Thanks for the info, this is the first "bigger" beer that I have brewed and totally forgot about making a starter because of the higher OG. I sure won't forget that one in the future.
I will check it in a couple of days to see if it has changed at all.
I am attempting to scrub the yeast that I collected from the bottom of the primary. Do you think it would be benifical to put any of that into the secondary to try to get the gravity down some more?

Carbon111 - I origonally pitched one of the smaller Propagator pack but luckily it did not swell up as much as I would have like. So i got one of the larger pack, I think it said it had like 100 billion yeast cells or somthing. When that was pitched fermentation took off and the airlock had activity going for like 10 - 12 days

Thanks!!

 

[Munsoned]

I took some gravity readings the other night on some beers that have been fermenting 25+ days, and all of them seemed a little high. I tried again last night, and they were much lower. The first night there was a lot of foam/bubbles in the testing tube, so I think that had something to do with it--in any event, I know there was user error involved.

Just saying, you might want to retest again tomorrow, just to see if maybe you may have had some "user error" as well.

 

[michael.berta]

Check out this pitching rate calculator:

Mr Malty Pitching Rate Calculator

based on a 1070 OG wort you'd need 2.6 smack packs if you didn't make a starter. Therefore you way under pitched. if you made a starter you'd need a 3.4 liter starter.

Personally for most American & British Ales I use Nottingham dry yeast. It attenuates really well and no starters or rehydration is required. For a 1.070 wort I'd just pitch 2 packs of Nottingham and forget about the expensive liquid yeast and the pain in the butt to make a 3.4 liter starter....

If you pitch enough yeast you should be able to attenuate your beer just fine with extract malts...

Cheers

Mike

 

[malkore]

Its also ill-advised to rack to secondary when you haven't hit terminal gravity.

Secondary is for clearing, not fermenting. Ferment in primary, hit terminal gravity, THEN rack to secondary (if you choose to do so) and clear it there.

 

[carbon111]

I origonally pitched one of the smaller Propagator pack but luckily it did not swell up as much as I would have like. So i got one of the larger pack, I think it said it had like 100 billion yeast cells or somthing. When that was pitched fermentation took off and the airlock had activity going for like 10 - 12 days

Thanks for clarifying. In that case it's either done...or stuck.

Try gently stirring the trub and adding a bit of "yeast energizer" and "yeast nutrient" (available at your LHBS).

Edit: I see you started with 8 lbs of DME - your yeast may not be able to take it any further especially since you probably left most of them behind in the primary. Still, you may want to try a little of those two Brewcraft products I mentioned above.

...or just cut your losses and bottle if the FG stays the same for a few days. It'll still probably be good beer.

 

[jescholler]

At 1.022, your attenuation is about 69%. The yeast is specified at 73-76%, but you don't know what type of malt that was tested with.

It's possible that you used a malt with less fermentable sugars than what the yeast's attenuation was tested with. This might be hard to track down, but I would check the finishing gravity of your extract and compare it to other extracts. The catch there is that you don't know what kind of yeast they used for that test. Just something to investigate.