IPA final gravity 1.028?

[istuntmanmike]

I made a batch of IPA before, based off of Drake's IPA, and it came out fantastic. I added another pound of DME and some more hops as well this second time around, and used Pacman yeast I harvested/washed from my previous batch of Dead Guy. The Dead Guy seemed to get 80% attenuation and finished lower than I expected.

The IPA, however, is sticking at 66%, OG 1.087 gravity now is 1.028 and it's been in the primary since 10/23. It's been at 28 for a week now.

I made a rather large starter with the washed yeast and the brew had vigorous fermentation with a bunch of blowoff. The first night, though, I had set the temp controller to 52*, because I apparently can't read and thought it was 62*. Do you guys think maybe this caused enough of the yeast to go dormant to cause it to poop out at this point?

It went from 1.087 to 1.030 in about 4 days, even with the cold start. What really irks me is that would put it at 7.5% ABV...just about the same as the previous batch, despite the extra pound of DME added to this one

It doesn't taste bad, it's just not as strong as I want it to be and is a bit thicker/sweeter than it should be. At 80% attenuation it should finish at 1.016, I understand having already fermented the Dead Guy (OG 1.069) it likely won't have the same high attenuation, but 66% is just not acceptable :/

For the record, this is what I used

9lb Extra light LME
3lb light DME

1.25lb Crystal 15L
1lb Crystal 40L

The first batch was the same, except only 2lb of DME, and it finished ~1.020.

I've brought the fermenting bucket into my bedroom, stirred it up, and raised the temperature to upper 70s for the past 5 days, still no change.

Any ideas not only on what caused this, but how to fix it? I know I can pitch some more yeast, I have some more of the Pacman in mason jars as well as a vial of Cali Ale yeast, would it be better to use one of these (and how would I go about making a starter for them, if I should), or just get a packet of dry yeast?

 

[JLem]

Well, you do have quite a bit of unfermentables in there with over 2 lbs of crystal malt...plus DME is often not that fermentable either...so that could be why it has finished so high. However, 1.028 does seem too high to be done for this beer and I would worry about bottling it. A rekicked fermentation in the bottle could be disastrous. I would try pitching a nice active starter of an alcohol tolerant yeast - I don't know anything about the Pacman yeast, but I bet the Cal Ale would work. You could also get some dry champagne yeast, rehydrate it, and pitch that in - champagne yeast is tolerant to adverse conditions like high ABV, low pH, low oxygen and low nutrients - which pretty much describes your beer at this point. Not sure if any of this will work, but I would hope you could get it down closer to 1.020.

BTW, have you checked the accuracy of your hydrometer lately? Sometimes the paper inside slips and you end up getting inaccurate readings.

 

[Calder]

Unfortunately you may be done. Yes, it is way too sweet, but it was a poor recipe to begin with.

2.25 lbs of crystal, probably provides .008 of unfermentable sugars (maybe a little more or less). For an IPA, I generally go with maybe 0.5 lbs, .75 max.

The extract alone will give you an OG of about 1.090. If we take the .008 (noted above) away from your FG for the unfermnentable sugars, we get an effective FG of 1.020. 1.090 to 1.020 is about 77% attenuation. That's about all you can expect from that yeast with extract.

Next time, reduce the crystal to 0.5 lbs, and replace a pound of the DME with plain sugar, and you could end up with a respectable 1.015 or (hopefully) lower.

 

[istuntmanmike]

I know the crystal has some unfermentables, but I would expect it to be the same amount as last time since I didn't change that bit of the recipe, just added DME. And the very same yeast had 80% attenuation the previous batch. Both hydrometers I use show 1.000 in pure water.

 

[istuntmanmike]

Unfortunately you may be done. Yes, it is way too sweet, but it was a poor recipe to begin with.

2.25 lbs of crystal, probably provides .008 of unfermentable sugars (maybe a little more or less). For an IPA, I generally go with maybe 0.5 lbs, .75 max.

The extract alone will give you an OG of about 1.090. If we take the .008 (noted above) away from your FG for the unfermnentable sugars, we get an effective FG of 1.020. 1.090 to 1.020 is about 77% attenuation. That's about all you can expect from that yeast with extract.

Next time, reduce the crystal to 0.5 lbs, and replace a pound of the DME with plain sugar, and you could end up with a respectable 1.015 or (hopefully) lower.

The crystal is the same that the Drake's recipe uses (morebeer.com kit). I didn't change that at all, and I used exactly the same amount the last time I made the recipe. And it was certainly not a poor recipe, it was pretty damn good. The original recipe used the same 9lbs of LME, but only .5lb DME. The first time I made it, I added 1.5lb of DME for 2lbs total, it had an OG of 1.078 and it finished at 1.020. So if that one had an effective FG of 1.012, that means I had 84% attenuation? That seems especially high for some WLP001, I was surprised at the 80% I got with the Pacman the previous batch.

 

[IL1kebeer]

that means I had 84% attenuation? That seems especially high for some WLP001

Not really. I routinely get 84%+ for my IPAs with WLP001. I got 83.8% on the last IPA recipe that I was toying with and have gotten up to 88% before. I can probably go higher if I needed to.

I have to agree with the previous poster. That is a poor recipe for extract. You can get away with it doing AG because you can manipulate mash temps, but with extract you are stuck with the fermentability of the extract that you are using (usually middle of the road fermentability). Combine that with the ridiculous amount of crystal that Drake uses and you have a recipe that will likely finish high, especially if you don't have the right fermentation profile.

A little trick is that you can minimash your extract with some 2row at like 149F for 30-60min and the beta amylase will work on that extract to make it more fermentable. Works wonders if you want a fermentable wort when using extract.

 

[istuntmanmike]

I guess I'm just confused at having such a huge discrepancy between the last batch and this one as far as attenuation, unfermentables etc goes. Figured the unfermentables would be the same from the first one to this one, and that I would get at least close to 80% attenuation considering the Pacman used. Using your calculations, I'm still only at 77%, when the last batch would have been 84%. I've read of Pacman routinely hitting 80%, and that's what I got with the Dead Guy.

So you wouldn't consider the unfermentables in the OG, only in the FG? Meaning you wouldn't subtract the .008 from the OG? Seems mathematically unbalanced for some reason :cross: You say the extract alone would give me 90, but I ended up with ~87, with the steeped grains included. So my actual OG would then be 79, since I have to take out the 8 from the grains? If the extract(90)+unfermentables(8) is 98, it would mean both of my hydrometers read 11 or 19 points low What am I missing here lol

 

[IL1kebeer]

So you wouldn't consider the unfermentables in the OG, only in the FG? Meaning you wouldn't subtract the .008 from the OG? Seems mathematically unbalanced for some reason :cross:

Crystal malts will add to your OG, just like any malt; however, the process that the use makes the the sugars unable to be fermented by beer yeast. That's why they will add to your OG AND FG. Those sugars are left in the beer after fermentation so they are called residual sugars. The more crystal malt you have then the more residual sugars you have, and as a result, you will have a higher FG.

 

[istuntmanmike]

I think I'll get some dry yeast packets and try a fast ferment test on a sample, and if it's done it's done. I've still got to dry hop it and sitting in the primary a little longer won't hurt anything. As long as they won't explode cuz it's actually done I'll be fine with them.

 

[hbtasdfg]

I had one like this that ended super high. In my case it was definitely unfermentables. Used way too much dark malt. It was about 3.5% alcohol and caused lots of gas.

You might hit it with lalvin ec-1118 for 99 cents and if it's just a stuck fermentation you might be able to get it to restart. Ingredients and yeasts can vary from batch to batch.

 

[Calder]

9lb Extra light LME
3lb light DME

1.25lb Crystal 15L
1lb Crystal 40L

The first batch was the same, except only 2lb of DME, and it finished ~1.020.

This is a pretty simple recipe. If you made 5 gallons, you will have gotten an OG of 1.108 per BeerSmith (I'm assuming you get 50% of the sugars from the crystal). You can get a false reading, if the wort was not fully mixed; it happens a lot.

1.108 to 1.028 = 74% attenuation. Considering the amount of unfermentable crystal you have in there, that's pretty good.

This is also putting you at 10.5% abv. This is a big beer, and yeast can stall if you don't provide it sufficient O2 at the start of fermentation.


The reason I removed the unfermentable crystal sugars when I calculated the attenuation before is because they distort the calculation. They are extra sugars that you have added that the yeast just can't work on. If you made this same beer in exactly the same way, without the Crystal, your OG would have been 1.100 (per the Beersmith calc noted above) and your FG would be 1.020; Thus the yeast would have had an attenuation of 80% of the sugars that it could work with.