Repitching in the secondary

[Palmetto33]

Well, I checked on the IPA in the secondary and it is .006 off the high end of the FG at 1.020. My Brown ale in the bottles are also way over FG.

I read in another thread going on that Munton's Dry Ale yeast (Mine just says Muntons Active Brewing Yeast) has a low attenuation rate. For the Brown ale in the bottles the Attenuation rate is 55% and for the IPA in the secondary it is only 60%. Also, on Palmer's website he said to use 7-14 grams of yeast for a 5 gallon batch. My package that I used for the first two brews are only 6 grams.

I'm starting to think that these two factors are what's causing my extraordinarily high gravity readings. Any thoughts on the possibility of the yeast causing the problem?

By the way I rehydrated the yeast before pitching in both and I aerated pretty thoroughly I thought, at least in the IPA. And the fermentation was very vigorous at the start in both batches. I transferred both after a week in the primary.

I'm thinking about rehydrating the one extra packet of Muntons I've got and adding it to my IPA in the secondary. It has already been dryhopped and has attenuated 60%. Should I do this?


Also, I'd really like to figure this out before brewing another batch, so any help (or suggestions for other dry yeast brands) would be greatly appreciated.

 

[PseudoChef]

Decreased fermentability of extract (versus grain) probably has a lot to do with this as well.

The other thing that I think is that if you are using yeast from the kit, there's a chance that's it's old and past its prime. I'd start using Fermentis products for dry yeast, or building up large starters out of While labs vials and Wyeast smackpacks.

 

[Palmetto33]

Good advice, I will start requesting that from my LHBS. In regards to the the extract though... I have hit both my OGs, wouldn't this mean that my worts are good to go in the fermentability department?

Whatcha think of the repitching into the secondary idea?

 

[PseudoChef]

I've never repitched into the secondary, and I haven't known anyone who has, so I can't really comment accurately on that aspect.

As per the fermentability, it is not dependent on your gravity. It's the composition of the wort in terms of the sugars and how they were converted during the malting process. Extract is just normally less fermentable than doing grain from scratch because of how it's initially processed, it has nothing to do with how the brewer handles it.

 

[Palmetto33]

This may very well be a part of it. The first batch was all extract but the IPA had some specialty grains that I steeped first. Of course I wasn't told how much grains there were or even what they were.