Slow Ferment

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Droot

Brewing since 1991
Joined
Jun 14, 2009
Messages
362
Reaction score
28
Location
Hamlin
I brewed an all grain batch last Sunday. After the boil over, I ended up with 11 gallons of 1.057 wort. I cooled it with an immersion chiller that took about an hour. (working on that). I hydrated 2 packs of S-05 yeast in 1.5 cups warm tap water. It started foaming like I expected, but the chiller took longer than I expected, so I gave the yeast a "shot" of wort I pulled from the brew kettle, about 80* f. Once the wort was down to 70*f, I pumped O2 into the kettle for one minutes NOT using a stone, just into the drain valve. This gives a head of foam to the top of the 15.5 brew kettle. After a whirlpool, I drained the wort into my fermenter pitching the yeast once there was about a gallon collected.

Day one.... about an inch of foam on top with a bunch of pellet hops (I used about 2 oz, the rest were whole hops) I skimmed that off with a sanitized stainless spoon and discarded it.

Day one gravity ... 1.050
Day 2....1.040
Day 3 ... 1.035
Day 4 ...1.025
Day 5 ... 1.016
Day 6 ...1.012

I can't see where I did anything wrong, The beer seems to be OK, tastes OK for the stage it is in.

This is my first time with S-05, I always used Wyeast liquid with a 3+ liter starter.

Temp was kept between 66 and 70*f, 68 most of the time. This is from the thermometer IN the beer.

I went to the website for the yeast, it says Temp should be between 59 and 75*f and ferment should be complete in 2-3 days. This is what I usually get with my big starter of liquid yeast.

Did I do something wrong? I don't think the beer is ruined, but I ferment in a 1/2 keg with the top cut out and just a lid on top.

Just Friday I ordered a 7 gal stainless conical fermenter so I will not be doing the open ferment thing any more..... I think..... I have brewed a lot of beer using the open ferment method with no problems, but I don't like leaving it in the primary any more than a week.

Really looking forward to the conical, I can draw the yeast off and leave it there for 3 weeks and for the first time I will try dry hopping.

David :)

Edit: Samples were drawn off the bottom from the valve and discarded after I tasted a sample. I found a small tube to put the hydrometer so I don't waste a bunch of beer sampling.
 
Everything looks fine to me you want to give it 7-10 days to ferment out, 1.012 @ day 6 is perfectly acceptable. RDWHAHB
 
Digging this thread up from 10 years ago... lol (Sorry, could have started a new one but this one seemed relevant!)

The chart below shows a slow fermentation. At least the slowest one I've charted yet in in about a year of tracking progress. Disregard the temp profile in the chart; that's was what I planned. But I deviated for a warmer profile when I realized it was slowing down.

This was with WLP075 that got a little hot during shipment. I did make a starter and gave the yeast nutrient and oxygenated prior to pitching.

The samples smell and taste good so I'm not worried; but geez this is slow... Anyone had such an experience??

upload_2019-7-22_6-27-18.png
 
I'd say that the old 3 week rule of thumb is sound for those that don't or cant monitor fermentation progress. But it still might not be enough in some cases it seems.

This is not what I'd consider normal though. FG is typically hit within the first week. Clearly this is an outlier...
 
Yep @Nagorg , i had a saison run that long once but I just wrote it off to the yeast (WLP-590 French Saison). It never stopped bubbling, it just chugged thru the wort at a really slow pace for some reason. It turned out fantastic though so if and when I do that one again I'll have to see if it performs the same?
 
Back
Top