Issue with fermentation

[bicyclefence]

I decided to brew a batch of beer for my buddy's bachelor party coming up next month. It was kind of a last minute decision so I planned on kegging instead of bottling.

Most of my friends drink the the macros, no big deal, I'll brew them a basic American Lager and maybe convert a few of them from their Bud Lite. This is my second batch from "Brewing Classic Styles" - the first a brown ale which turned out spectacularly and now I tried "What most folks call beer" which has 6.25lbs of Light LME and 1.5lbs of Rice Syrup. I was unable to get rice syrup at my local homebrew store so they suggested I just do 7.5lbs of LME - they told me the colour wouldn't be right but it should still be fine. It's being kegged and likely will be drunk from red solo cups - I wasn't worried about colour.

Anyway, brew day went fine, although rookie mistake - I forgot to take a hydrometer reading. 5 days into fermentation I went to rack into secondary (I know it's not necessary, it's just the way I've always done it) and I took my normal sip at this point to see what I'm in for and yikes - tastes like how I imagine the LME straight up would taste. Very syrupy, very sugary. I now did a hydrometer reading and I'm sitting at 1.085. The recipe states an OG of 1.046 and FG of 1.008.

What happened?? Did my yeast not work at all? I used Wyeast American Lager, smacked the pack almost 8 hours before I brewed and it was completely swollen. Any suggestions as to how I might be able to salvage it? I don't have time to start again.

 

[dozer5454]

If after 5 days it's still sitting at 1.085 I would say your yeast did not work. I would say pitch more yeast and let it ride. The few lagers I have made fermented for about a week. They would then have to sit at refrigeration temps for 6 weeks usually after fermentation is done to truly clear. Will you have enough time to finish this beer?

 

[sptaylor70]

You might also look into trying a koelsch, alt, or ale yeast. After five days, you need speed in fermentation. 2565 koelsch and 1007 alt should ferment faster than a lager yeast, and if you lager them you'll get pretty clean flavors. If you're willing to accept even more fruitiness, then 1084 Irish and 1728 Scottish are good choices for big beers.

 

[freisste]

Not sure what's going on here, but something was measured incorrectly. Either you added too much extract, not enough water, or you measured gravity wrong. 7.5 lbs LME in 5 gallons won't get you to 1.085.

Unless I'm way off.

Measure again to determine for sure that you haven't had any fermentation before taking more drastic measures.

Edit: Just dumped your numbers (7.5lbs LME in a 5 gal batch) into a calculator and it suggested 1.056 OG and 1.014 FG - that assumes 75% attenuation, adjust as necessary.

 

[freisste]

Also (and I realize that telling you what went wrong is less interesting at the moment than fixing the issue), if you didn't do a starter, you likely under pitched. Did you oxygenate the wort before pitching? How was your temp control ad did you stay in the suggests range? Not trying to add insult to injury, but it makes some sense that fermentation didn't take off.

As far as fixing it, you could pitch more yeast of the same variety, hoping that it gets you to a more appropriate pitch rate (haven't checked mrmalty or yeastcalc, but two smack packs may be enough for a lager <1.060 OG). Or take the previous poster's advice and switch to a faster acting yeast. Your timeline is not conducive to a lager, especially starting off slowly.

 

[bicyclefence]

Well it was definitely 7.5lbs, it comes in small pails of 2.5lbs and there were 3 of them. Since there were no grains, I didn't have anything to steep so I just brought the 6 gallons to a boil while adding the extract. It's definitely the simplest recipe I've used by far, pretty hard to mess it up.

I'll try adding another pack of yeast tomorrow morning and see how that goes.

 

[bicyclefence]

I did not use a starter... I didn't think it would be necessary. Yeah, I definitely oxygenated it before pitching. The only thing I can think I did wrong was maybe pitch it a bit too warm. I had my wort chiller going for a good 25 minutes or so, I pitched it at approximately 28C

 

[freisste]

That's about 82F, if my math is correct, which is warm, but I would think it would cause fermentation to start faster. Maybe you shocked the yeast?

How quickly did you cool down to the yeasts optimum temp after that?

 

[bicyclefence]

After that I just left it in my garage which is usually around 15C (59F) and it's been in there since.

 

[TexanRudeboy]

I did not use a starter... I didn't think it would be necessary. Yeah, I definitely oxygenated it before pitching. The only thing I can think I did wrong was maybe pitch it a bit too warm. I had my wort chiller going for a good 25 minutes or so, I pitched it at approximately 28C

Wyeast lists 59F as the upper limit for the yeast. Pitching into 80F+ might have killed it.