Should I add yeast, keep waiting, or what?

[phillip_h]

I got into brewing a couple of years ago and brewed about 6-7 batches. My last one was not great and kind of put me off for a while. A year later, I have done a lot of research and have realized that I was doing so much wrong.

Anyway, I brewed a clone of Avery Maharaja (one of my favorite imperial IPAs) a week ago. My OG was 1.086 and I rehydrated and pitched 2 packets of Safale US-05. It has been in my temp-controlled fridge at 67-68°F.

Today, the gravity is close to 1.020. I would like it to be closer to 1.015 or lower. I have a packet of champagne yeast that I can rehydrate and pitch today. Should I pitch it or just keep waiting or what?

 

[HLSheppard]

What temp. was your mash?

 

[phillip_h]

What temp. was your mash?

Mash temp was about 150-151

 

[IslandLizard]

Bring it up to 72-74F and give it another week. It needs some conditioning anyway. If the beer is already clearing, rouse the yeast back into suspension without introducing air (oxygen) into it. Careful swirling works best. If in a bucket do not remove the lid until ready to bottle/keg. You may dry hop for those 5-7 days while it's conditioning.

Champagne yeast may dry it out too much, or do nothing at all.

 

[kombat]

What was the grain bill?

 

[GrogNerd]

wait. only wait. maybe bump the temp up

give it time. yeast have other things to do besides fermentation and you need to give them more time.

little chance 1.086 is going to be done in a week.

 

[phillip_h]

Bring it up to 70-72F and give it another week. It needs some conditioning anyway. If the beer is already clearing, rouse the yeast back into suspension without introducing air (oxygen) into it. Careful swirling works best. If in a bucket do not remove the lid until ready to bottle/keg. You may dry hop for those 5-7 days while it's conditioning.

Champagne yeast may dry it out too much, or do nothing at all.

I was planning to transfer to a secondary fermenter for another 5-7 days. I know that secondary fermentation is kind of unpopular, but my understanding is that dry hopping is the exception.

I was going to use hop socks and add 4 oz of hops to the fermenter. I guess I could just add them to the primary, but I don't want to add a ton of crud to the keg.

How about this:
- Swirl the fermenter (I'm using one of these) to rouse the yeast
- add dry hops to primary
- raise the temp to 70-72F for 7 days
- cold crash for a few days
- siphon to the keg

I would rather not deal with secondary to avoid an infection opportunity, but I kinda thought that you needed to do a secondary when dry hopping.

 

[phillip_h]

What was the grain bill?

15.5 lbs 2-row
.5 lb C120
.5 lb Victory

I added a lb of light DME to the kettle since my mash was a little less efficient than I anticipated.

 

[kombat]

I would rather not deal with secondary to avoid an infection opportunity, but I kinda thought that you needed to do a secondary when dry hopping.

Only if you're planning on re-using the yeast. Otherwise, don't bother.

 

[phillip_h]

Only if you're planning on re-using the yeast. Otherwise, don't bother.

Yeah, I'm not going to reuse this yeast. They're probably going to be pretty useless after fermenting a beer this big.

 

[IslandLizard]

I was planning to transfer to a secondary fermenter for another 5-7 days. I know that secondary fermentation is kind of unpopular, but my understanding is that dry hopping is the exception.

I was going to use hop socks and add 4 oz of hops to the fermenter. I guess I could just add them to the primary, but I don't want to add a ton of crud to the keg.

How about this:
- Swirl the fermenter (I'm using one of these) to rouse the yeast
- add dry hops to primary
- raise the temp to 70-72F for 7 days
- cold crash for a few days
- siphon to the keg

I would rather not deal with secondary to avoid an infection opportunity, but I kinda thought that you needed to do a secondary when dry hopping.

Dry hop in the keg!

Those Spiedels have a huge headspace, which will fill with air anytime you take the lid off, such as when adding dry hops. Oxidation is a big problem for IPAs, it kills the bright hoppy aromas and flavors quickly.

I would give it the extra week in the Spiedel, but at 72-74F (I edited the temps after posting the previous reply).

Then cold crash, and rack to a pre-purged keg. While gas is still streaming in at a medium rate (~8-10 psi), remove lid and add your dry hops in a weighted down, large (roomy) fine mesh hop sack or muslin, suspended with a piece of unflavored floss or so. Try to avoid adding excessive air. Replace lid and re-purge 10-15x at 30 psi. If the keg is full, it really doesn't use all that much gas.

You could agitate by gently rolling or shaking to extract the goodness from the dry hops quicker. Then tap as is or do an airless transfer to a 2nd, prepurged keg after all the yeast and hop dust has settled.

 

[phillip_h]

Dry hop in the keg...

Well, crap. I literally just dropped the hops into the fermenter. Hopefully, I didn't introduce too much oxygen to the fermenter. I unscrewed the lid and popped open the gasket for maybe a second while I dropped the hops in. There's still some airlock bubbling going on, so hopefully the yeast can push the oxygen out.

Oh well, live and learn. That'll teach me to be impatient.

 

[IslandLizard]

Dang! :smack:

While the lid is on, can you flush the headspace with CO2 through the airlock hole? I always do that with buckets, after siphoning off a sample. It will "dilute" the air that's in there with CO2 . Flush it like that for 1-2 minutes, swirl that end of CO2 hose around in there. It's not perfect, I wish there was a better way, yet, better than nothing. It probably still pushes 90% of the air (O2) out with that method.

On homebrew scale some of these issues are amplified.

The yeast won't push much out, if anything at all, it's an insignificant volume and rate at this point.

 

[phillip_h]

well, I pushed some co2 through the airlock hole into the fermenter, so hopefully that keeps the beer from getting too oxidized.