Issue with Brewers best tripel-Slow ferment, high (still) sg.

[Pwhitby]

Im sure this has been asked many times, but couldnt really find an answer---
Fist time brewing after man many years of not.....

heres the issue, I made brewers best tripel as per the instructions, set it up in 6.5g carboy. Initial ferment was sufficient to blow the bung, afetr cleaning and repositioning the ferment was strong for 2 days then dropped to almost imperceptible bubbling thru the airlock. Its now 12 days in and the Sg has dropped from an initial 1.084 to 1.040.... which seems a little slow to me. Is this normal for this kit or are things potentially amiss?--im using a refractometer as opposed to hydrometer.

Temp is 70f. Thick yeast pellicle in the bottom and the ferment is semi-cloudy. odor from the airlock smells beer-good...

Should I be concerned or just let it do its thing?

Thanks.,

paul.

 

[mac_1103]

That kit was the first beer I ever brewed. I did a whole bunch of stuff wrong, including a pretty serious boil-over, but (checks notes) my OG was 1.083 and my FG was 1.026 (when I bottled at 15 days). IIRC airlock activity slowed way down after about 5 or 6 days.

I don't use a refractometer, but the need for a correction factor once there's alcohol in the sample comes up frequently in threads posted here. Hopefully someone who knows more than I do will chime in with a recommendation.

 

[Bassman2003]

What yeast are you using? And what number in the refractometer are you seeing?

 

[hotbeer]

Beer quite often is fermented completely within 3 or 4 days. So it's not unusual to see few if any bubbles in it for the remainder of the time it's in the FV. But just because it's fermented completely doesn't mean it's ready to come out of the FV. Yeast do other things besides ferment your beer. One of them is getting rid of the sometimes nasty flavors and aromas they give off when making alcohol for you.

Leave it for the full two or three weeks or more and you'll have some pretty clean looking and clean tasting beer.

Not certain what's up with your FG though. That might be a refractometer you didn't apply the correct corrections to. Or it might be your mash wasn't long enough to convert the starches or your temp got way too hot during the mash.

Though I'm not certain if unconverted starches will give you a SG at a similar level that sugars do. Maybe another member knows about this.

 

[mac_1103]

Brewer's Best doesn't make all grain kits, AFAIK. Pretty sure this is what the OP brewed.

 

[Pwhitby]

I hadnt realized that with a refractometer, --so i pulled my hydrometer out and we are at 1.020.... big difference and that makes me rather happy.

Thanks Mac_1103, you made my day!

 

[hotbeer]

Brewer's Best doesn't make all grain kits, AFAIK. Pretty sure this is what the OP brewed.

I've never made beer with extract. Kits or otherwise. Thanks for reminding me. It sort of makes a lot of my reply to the OP moot.

 

[mac_1103]

You're welcome. Also, welcome (to the forum that is). Your beer is probably done fermenting, but like hotbeer said, I would give it a few more days to finish cleaning up. And getting the same gravity reading two or three days from now will prove that it's finished.

 

[mac_1103]

Also, Pwhitby, that turned out to be a pretty nice beer for a first effort, so I'm sure you'll enjoy the result. I don't use kits anymore unless I find some kind of incredible sale. Maybe this is mostly nostalgia, but I liked that one so much that I basically converted the recipe to all grain and partial mash versions.