How bad is it?

[MFigz]

I brewed my first 10 gallon batch 9 days ago, and the brew day actually went pretty well. When I split the batch into fermenter buckets, it was more like 4.75 gal and 5.75 gal per bucket, so not exactly an even split. My Yeast starter was a 3 litre starter which I poured off the wort and pitched just the slurry (giving it my best guess as to how much went in each bucket) I also tossed an extra yeast pouch (Wyeast 1056) split between the 2 buckets just for good measure.

This is when things went south...I recently upgraded my keezer, so I repurposed my old keezer for a fermenting chamber. Apparently I had an extremely active fermentation because at some point it actually lifted the lid off of one of the buckets and knocked the airlock out of both. I'm not sure exactly how long they were sitting in the chamber like that with no air lock (and no lid for one of them), but it could have been up to 2 days.

It's been 9 days now and I finally had time to transfer to secondary and dry hop. Here's the problems:

Bucket 1: This is the 4.75g bucket and also the one that the lid came off of...There was a stink bug on the yeast cake when I finished transferring. FG was supposed to be 1.012, it got down to 1.010. I am really worried about what the stink bug did to this batch, and I'm a lil afraid to even taste it to see if it tastes off...

Bucket 2: This one only had the air lock pop off (no stink bug that I could see), but the FG after 9 days in this bucket is 1.030. The yeast cake had a some dark spots that I've never noticed in other batches, and it was a little chunkier then I am used to. I am guessing that I did not do a very good job of splitting the yeast between the 2 buckets, so I'm considering sprinkling some US-05 that I have in the fridge into this bucket to try and kick start the fermentation again, but I'm also a bit concerned about the dark spots...

I'd love to hear your opinions!

Thanks
Mike

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Bucket 1: I wouldn't worry. I don't know what a stink bug is, but have had dozens of various bugs and insects in various brews - none of them have done any damage. They do help with creative names for beers though! To put things in perspective, vats of wine often have rats in them (they bloat and can explode) and most foods have an acceptable level of insect/spider/rodent inclusions.

Bucket 2: It's odd that the air lock would pop off with minimal ferment activity. Dark spots are quite common - they are little yeast rafts with the dark brown gunky stuff that normally sticks to the side of your fermenter (very bitter - you don't want it in your beer). I'm not aware of any dark coloured infections - they are mostly white. You are also unlikely to see visible signs of infection in 9 days, unless there was a really bad source of infection. I'd personally let this one ride for another week, it should get the gravity down where you want it eventually but the beer might not be as good as it could have been.

EDIT: It's not recommended to transfer to secondary after 9 days. Most brewers now don't use secondary at all; if you do want to secondary, do it with a few gravity points still left so the active yeast can clean up any oxygen that gets in.

 

[MFigz]

Thanks! I usually don't secondary, but the recipe called for me to dry hop after transferring to secondary so I figured what the hell! I was supposed to do it after 3 or 4 days if I remember right,but I obviously blew the timing as far as that one goes. That's great info about doing it with a few gravity points left which I didn't know so I will definitely keep that in mind for the future!

As for Bucket 2, it did have an active enough fermentation to push the air lock off and ooze out the hole a bit, it just didn't pop the lid off like bucket 1. That's why I'm confused about why the gravity has stalled out at 1.030 9 days into it. Would it be a bad idea to sprinkle some US-05 (or grab another pouch of 1056 if LHBS is open tomorrow) in the bucket this late?

Thanks!
Mike

 

[Gnomebrewer]

Transferring after 3 to 4 days normally means the yeast are still active (to clean up O2).

Some of the krausen came out of the airlock hole? That's a nice, aggressive ferment. I can't see why it would stall at 1.030 (an English yeast might - they are known for it - but not usually US05/1056/WLP001). You didn't use a refractometer to measure gravity did you? What was the OG? Did it get really cold after starting to ferment?

 

[MFigz]

Yeah, that's kinda what I was thinking as well. The 2nd bucket wasn't as active as the first, but it was the first time that I've ever had a ferment blow out the hole in any way.

OG was 1.060 and it was Wyeast 1056. I was actually worried that I may have over pitched between the 3 litre starter and an extra pouch of 1056. I used the same hydrometer to measure OG as I did to check after transferring to secondary.

As for temp, I had my fermenting chamber set to 66F until I realized stuff went south and was overflowing (call it 4 days after brew day?). At that point, I cleaned everything up and left the buckets in my basement so I could watch it closer...I didn't watch the thermometer during the first 4 days unfortunately, but for the last 5 sitting in my basement it was reading between 60F and 62F which is a bit lower then I wanted but still within range. To the best of my knowledge, the first few days are the most critical, so I wasn't too concerned about temp after cleaning everything up.

Since I did not measure how much yeast went into each bucket (which is pissing me off!) I keep wondering if I maybe did not pitch enough into the second bucket which could be why it stalled?

Thanks!
Mike

 

[Moose_MI]

Just curious...when you transferred from boil kettle to fermenters did you alternate between them or fill 1 followed by the 2nd?

 

[MFigz]

I filled one, then the other. I didn't realize that would make a difference, what's the reason for going back and forth?

 

[Moose_MI]

I filled one, then the other. I didn't realize that would make a difference, what's the reason for going back and forth?

I can not site scientific reasons or reference any expirements that I performed .... but ..... when i went to 10G I noticed the beer from fermenter 1 vs 2 was different in many ways including color and flavor...very different. As i tried to figure out why i decided to try alternating as i filled fermenters ...I went back and forth about 4 or 5 times over the coarse of the fill. Problem solved...immediately.

I eventually built this to avoid switching and guarantee complete homogeneity.....

..and now I do 15G so I’m back to switching around.

 

[MFigz]

Moose, that's a very interesting observation, and I LOVE your splitter! What a great idea!

That being said I pulled the trigger on a 14 gal fastfermenter this weekend to avoid having to split in the future (your idea could have saved me a lot of money!)

On top of all that I completely forgot about one very important piece of information. My oxygen bottle ran empty halfway through oxygenating the 2nd bucket. I'm not positive, but there's a very good chance the one that is stalled is also the one that did not get oxygenated well enough. I did shake it several times the first 24 hours, but not sure that was enough. I'm wondering if lack of oxygen is the reason for the stall now and if so, is there anything I can do about it?

Thanks!
Mike