Issues with Adding Sugars to Secondary

[TahoePowderHound]

I’m getting into the fall spirit by brewing the No Fail Stout recipe from AHA. I hit all my numbers on brew day and followed the recipe they posted except for the enzyme schedule.

The recipe calls for 4 days primary, 7 days secondary all at 68F. D-180 candi syrup is added to secondary.

My gravity went from 1.064 to 1.031 during primary.

I transferred to secondary with 1 lb d-180 which brought me up to 1.036

After 5 days it had only dropped back down to 1.031 so I dry pitched another 3 grams of the same yeast. After two days it’s only dropped another 2 points.

This is the first time I’ve ever added sugars to secondary so I’m wondering if this pace sounds typical or not. Maybe I’m not being patient enough. But the final gravity I’m after is 1.016 so it seems a ways away.

Any advice is useful. Even if it gets totally stuck it wouldn’t be a loss as it tastes very very good right now, but I’d like to hit my numbers.

 

[skleice]

I've never added to secondary, so I can't give much help. I'm guessing the primary fermentation didn't drop as much as expected before transfer. The recipe should probably just go by gravity points rather than # of days. Anyway, I would say just wait til your readings level off for a while.

Please let us know how this turns out. I wasn't aware of this recipe and love a good stout. I've had mixed results on the darker beers. My milk stout was a huge success, came out dark as night with a great balance of roastiness and sweetness. My recent Porter is more like a dry brown ale, so bummed on that one.

edit - That's a lot of buckwheat! How did your mash go? Efficiency? When I used 20% buckwheat I had to add a ton of extra water. Can't imagine 30%.

 

[TahoePowderHound]

I've never added to secondary, so I can't give much help. I'm guessing the primary fermentation didn't drop as much as expected before transfer. The recipe should probably just go by gravity points rather than # of days. Anyway, I would say just wait til your readings level off for a while.

Please let us know how this turns out. I wasn't aware of this recipe and love a good stout. I've had mixed results on the darker beers. My milk stout was a huge success, came out dark as night with a great balance of roastiness and sweetness. My recent Porter is more like a dry brown ale, so bummed on that one.

edit - That's a lot of buckwheat! How did your mash go? Efficiency? When I used 20% buckwheat I had to add a ton of extra water. Can't imagine 30%.

I will definitely keep you posted on this recipe, I was pretty excited to find it. So far it tastes great so I’m pretty hopeful.

I was worried about the high amount of buckwheat as well, but I didn’t have any issues at all. I mash in a cooler with a pretty standard false bottom. I used John Bierly’s mod which involves taking a stove top splatter screen and cutting out the mesh and attaching it to the false bottom with hitch clips and my worts have been crystal clear since. I used 15% rice hulls with this recipe just to be safe and I’m glad I did. I also recirculate with a chugger pump for the last 20 minutes of my mash and then fly sparge, so once my grain bed is set nicely I don’t have to risk mixing it up and getting stuck. I know you use the grainfather so there’s probably a whole other set of obstacles I don’t even know about.

 

[chaps]

You could try using some enzymes poured directly into your secondary. Brulosophy just did one of their exbeeriments on this and with a non-gf beer the enzymes actually caused more fermentation being used in the secondary as opposed to the wort. Not apples to apples obviously but figured I would throw it out there.

I just had a similar problem and the “wait and see” method bit me in the ass.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

My gravity went from 1.064 to 1.031 during primary.
After two days it’s only dropped another 2 points.

Did you, maybe, measure gravity with a refractometer? The most common issue when brewers have a really high FG is that they are measuring with a refractometer, which reads gravity erroneously once alcohol is present. However, the ones that aren't measured with a refractometer and still have an issue seem to mostly be GF beers.....I'm wondering if there's an issue with conversion. Soluble starch (and dextrins) will add to OG, but won't ferment. Did you do an iodine test?

 

[TahoePowderHound]

Did you, maybe, measure gravity with a refractometer? The most common issue when brewers have a really high FG is that they are measuring with a refractometer, which reads gravity erroneously once alcohol is present. However, the ones that aren't measured with a refractometer and still have an issue seem to mostly be GF beers.....I'm wondering if there's an issue with conversion. Soluble starch (and dextrins) will add to OG, but won't ferment. Did you do an iodine test?

I used a hydrometer for all of my gravity readings. I usually do an iodine test on my brews but to be honest I can't recall for sure if I did. I rehydrated some more yeast with go ferm and pitched that into secondary. It took about a month but I was able to get the beer to finish at 1.023. Not the target FG but I called it a day and bottled with a little less dextrose than normal just in case. After 2 weeks in the bottle I tested one and definitely don't think I'll run the risk of bottle bombs. Finishing at 1.023 has actually given the beer a really nice mouthfeel for a stout. Still don't quite know what happened but I'll def try this recipe again and see what happens!

 

[TahoePowderHound]

You could try using some enzymes poured directly into your secondary. Brulosophy just did one of their exbeeriments on this and with a non-gf beer the enzymes actually caused more fermentation being used in the secondary as opposed to the wort. Not apples to apples obviously but figured I would throw it out there.

I just had a similar problem and the “wait and see” method bit me in the ass.

That's really interesting. Obviously with brewing GF I'm using enzymes anyway so I have them at the ready. Maybe worth a shot (even just for experiments sake) if this happens again.