Reassurance needed on 1st BIG beer

[Coolhand78]

Hi everyone - I'm hoping someone can give me a little guidance, or perhaps a little bit of reassurance is all I need. Two weeks ago I brewed a Strong Scotch Ale, BIAB, 3.5 gallon batch into the fermenter. It was based on the recipe in Brewing Classic Styles (lmk if I should post the recipe).

My mash was a little high, 157 instead of 154. Aerated my wort and pitched one packet of rehydrated US05. OG was 1.09 (recipe said I was shooting for 1.10). Ambient fermentation temp was between 62 and 66. After 9 days the krausen had dropped, and a gravity reading gave me 1.032. Waited 2 more days to check again, and it was down to 1.03. Two more days (today) I checked again and it was still 1.03. This is only 65% attenuation, which I read is extremely low for US05. The target FG is 1.019. I was told one pack of US05 would have no problem with this size batch.

I roused the yeast a little bit after my latest gravity reading, something that I've never done before. Do you think the gravity will continue to drop for another week (and I should RDWHAHB)? Can you think of any problems I may have had, besides the slightly high mash temp? Should I continue rousing the yeast a few times a day for a few more days and then check again? Anything else I should do?

Thanks for any input!

 

[Gavin C]

Mashing warm and a massive under-pitch are two boxes checked for a higher than desired FG.

It won't go any lower. that would be my guess.

You could add amylase.

That will likely solve your problem.

Swirling swishing shaking will do nothing for you. There are hundreds of billions of yeast in the fermentor now. They have consumed all the available food. Adding amylase will result in more food being produced as fermentable carbohydrates are cleaved from unfermentable ones.

I'd predict you will drop another 10 points with amylase being added. It's available in all good LHBS and from online vendors.

Beers this big you want to treat them almost like a lager in terms of pitch-rate. Pure O2 after the wort goes into your fermentor may also stack the deck in your favor. (No adding O2 now obviously)

Here is a great thread covering amylase use in some detail.

 

[JosephN]

I don't know anything about the above advice. I know that in a book I have, and read yesterday, that a higher mash temp has been shown to leave you with a higher FG than expected. I don't know if this means that you can't correct it, but I wonder what the ABV tolerance is for the yeast you used?? Maybe you could drop more or the above suggest from Gavin may work just fine. Regardless, with your next high gravity beer use more yeast. I've found that using twice as much yeast as suggested makes things much better for your fermentation.

Let me know what you do. Oh and if you do add more yeast maybe you can check out the dry yeast CBC-1

 

[RM-MN]

Hi everyone - I'm hoping someone can give me a little guidance, or perhaps a little bit of reassurance is all I need. Two weeks ago I brewed a Strong Scotch Ale, BIAB, 3.5 gallon batch into the fermenter. It was based on the recipe in Brewing Classic Styles (lmk if I should post the recipe).

My mash was a little high, 157 instead of 154. Aerated my wort and pitched one packet of rehydrated US05. OG was 1.09 (recipe said I was shooting for 1.10). Ambient fermentation temp was between 62 and 66. After 9 days the krausen had dropped, and a gravity reading gave me 1.032. Waited 2 more days to check again, and it was down to 1.03. Two more days (today) I checked again and it was still 1.03. This is only 65% attenuation, which I read is extremely low for US05. The target FG is 1.019. I was told one pack of US05 would have no problem with this size batch.

I roused the yeast a little bit after my latest gravity reading, something that I've never done before. Do you think the gravity will continue to drop for another week (and I should RDWHAHB)? Can you think of any problems I may have had, besides the slightly high mash temp? Should I continue rousing the yeast a few times a day for a few more days and then check again? Anything else I should do?

Thanks for any input!

One pack would have been fine for a batch this size if you had had an OG of 1.050. Your OG was way higher so you probably needed 2 packs. When you couple underpitching with higher mash temp you do end up with a high final gravity. Warming the beer after the activity slows will help the yeast get the FG down some more. I've had a bigger beer take more than 2 weeks to get to final gravity too.

 

[hunter_le five]

This will all end in tears.

 

[RM-MN]

This will all end in tears.

You misspelled beers.