Is my primary working against me?

[PintOfBitter]

I have now turned out 3 consecutive beers which have failed to ferment to completion - stayed nasty sweet and cloudy... No gushers, bottle rings, or other signs of infection, but I read of another user who had the same problem and eventually blamed it on his plastic primary, which he thought wasn't getting properly sanitized.

I'm very cautious with sanitation (use iodophor in most cases) and purposeful with aeration. I use a chiller, and have been pitching Activator packs.

My last frustrating batch is in a keg. I added some yeast energizer, waited a few days without any noticeable improvement, then pitched a spare dry packet of ale yeast into the keg, hoping to at least salvage the batch in some way. Several days later, still no sign of improvement.

Anybody have this happen? I don't think it's really addressed in the books I have. I now have a batch in secondary which was in the same bucket - can i help it in any way if it comes out the same?

arrrrrg.

PoB

 

[dcbrewmeister]

How are you determining they have not been completing? I avoid the activator packs simply because I don't like the way they seem to work for me. IMO they are extremely slow to start fermenting for something called an "activator" pack...

Try another type/brand of yeast if this is the only type you have been using.

 

[Dave R]

Are you aerating? I use plastic buckets to ferment in and never had a problem getting a good fermentation.

 

[dcbrewmeister]

Are you aerating? I use plastic buckets to ferment in and never had a problem getting a good fermentation.

"and purposeful with aeration" - yup

Unless it's not a food grade bucket or the "lining" has degraded and it has become porous and harboring bacteria, I doubt it's the bucket, but maybe it's time for a glass carboy.

 

[ajf]

There's two things I can think of:
Temperature and time.
If the temperature is too low for the yeast, it will take a long time to finish fermenting.
During the winter, I ferment a bit cooler, and leave it for at least two weeks in the primary, and four weeks in the secondary, then another 4 - 6 weeks in the keg before I start drinking.

-a.

 

[Blender]

I doubt that the bucket really has a mojor impact on fermentation but it will not hurt anything to switch to a carboy. I kinda of think that you are not pitching a large enough volume of yeast. I would either make a starter to double the quanity of liquid yeast or try the 11 gram packs of dry yeast. How do you aerate?

 

[david_42]

It isn't the bucket [in the interests of not being an absolutist, 99.99% chance that isn't the problem]. Are you reaching your target gravity? That's the only way to judge the progress of a fermentation, "nasty sweet and cloudy" may indicate a stuck fermentation, but there are other possibilities.

 

[PintOfBitter]

Temperature is fairly constant at ~68 F.

My first batches when I was just starting out were with small packs of dry yeast, and I never did have an issue with the beer. I figured an Activator pack should be a step ahead even without a starter because of the increased cell population. My packs have always swelled healthily before pitching.

I'll take your advice about a starter next time around, just to be safe, but I'm finding it hard to believe that suddenly I just need a massive yeast army to create a fairly normal beer.

 

[kladue]

Question, are these all grain batches?. If so what was the mash temperature you were using, starting temperature above 156 deg gives this kind of result. Sometimes you can salvage a high FG batch by using a "beano" tablet to reduce the dextrines to sugars and restart fermentation.

 

[ajf]

The Wyeast packs look bigger than the dried packets, but in terms of cell count, dried yeasts have more cells.

See http://www.mrmalty.com/pitching.php for more information

-a.

 

[PintOfBitter]

extract batches. Could my electric stove be converting sugars into unfermentables, i.e. carmelizing?

I see that the Activator pack shouldn't have too big a deficit of yeast cells, but maybe a starter is a better way to go.

PoB

 

[kladue]

Here are a couple of possible causes, if the ferementing bucket is on the floor the internal temperature could be much cooler than the air temperature at thermostat level, and/or a highly flocculant yeast strain that settles out before fermentation is done. A couple of things that would help in the future would be to make a starter with the smack pack, aeration of the wort, and a stick on thermometer for the fermentation bucket to monitor temperature during fermentation. For the high finish gravity batches you could try the danstar nottingham dry yeast to restart fermentation, this yeast will finish at lower FG than most others which should clear up the sweet taste.

 

[PintOfBitter]

Thanks a lot for the tip - I've used the nottingham before, but didn't realize it was a high attenuating yeast. I can get it locally on the cheap.

It seems that maybe my efforts are slowly paying off (?) because there is a slow but steady production of gas coming off the beer now - I'm just venting the PRV on the keg a few times daily. There's not an appreciable amount of pressure, I'd guess ~5 PSI each time, but at least there is some gas volume coming off the, well, wort.

What do you guys do for aeration? I trickle the cooled wort into the bucket from several feet to do lots of splashing, then slosh the closed bucket just a bit, but don't actually shake it. Should this be enough? Like I said, I've gotten good results in the past without even doing that much. The Weihenstephan yeast I used should be super low flocculating, so I'm confounded.

Almost wanna go back to the good old simple days of hopped extract cans and 1 stage fermentation. umm, well, not quite...

PoB

 

[kladue]

Whoa, Did you use wyeast 3056 0r 3068 german ale yeast, If so it likes to be about 72 degrees for the first day and a half to get the banana aroma then cooled down to 66 - 68 degrees to finish. If your fermenting bucket is on the floor the wort temperature might be in the mid to low 60's which will really slow down fermentation. This yeast usually works quite well if you give it a warm start so the yeast can multiply quickly, then it needs to cool down to control the banana aroma. Try stirring or shaking the wort to re suspend the yeast and move to a warmer area to get going again, keep the nottingham as a last resort if shaking and warming up the wort fails.

 

[PintOfBitter]

Yes I'm using Wy3068... Pitched at mid to high 70's but it probably cooled to around 68 in maybe half a day. I don't think I remember knowing about the higher initial temp - is it on the pack (if so, stupid me...)?

I figured that 68 was an acceptable ferm. temp, and that just happens to be what my bedroom sits at (what can I say, the airlock sounds help me sleep )

Not sure if restarting the fermentation in a big way would be a good idea now that it's kegged - I probably need to free up a carboy and transfer...

I'll try and see what happens

Thx

PoB

 

[kladue]

Have done both weizens and weizenbocks for competition and have worked out the tempeature/time schedule to get enough banana aroma without overdoing it. probably the best investment you could make at this time would be a O2 injection system. A starting point for O2 flow would be slowly turn up regulator until you get a fine stream of bubbles from the stone and use about 3 minutes duration, more flow or duration will increase the fermentation speed and increase attenuation. Lag time from pitching yeast to active fermentation will increase as the yeast are busy using the oxygen to multiply before starting fermentation, sometimes up to 18 hours.