Slow fermentation

[baldric]

On May 6 I brewed a nice batch of amber ale with an OG of 1.052
I fermented with a starter of Wyeast 1098 (British Ale) from a previous batch. I made a 1.055 starter with pilsen DME two days before brewday.

In the first week the gravity dropped predictably to 1.023. That was May 16.
Afterwards, the fermentation went dog slow.

The gravities are as follows:

May 6 OG= 1.052
May 12 SG= 1.025
May 16 SG= 1.023 (transferred to secondary at this point)
May 19 SG= 1.022
May 24 SG= 1.020
The fermentation temperature started around 61F but due to warm ambient temps is sitting around 68F.

Is this normal? I'm usually bottling by now.
Has anyone else encountered

 

[Schnitzengiggle]

On May 6 I brewed a nice batch of amber ale with an OG of 1.052
I fermented with a starter of Wyeast 1098 (British Ale) from a previous batch. I made a 1.055 starter with pilsen DME two days before brewday.

In the first week the gravity dropped predictably to 1.023. That was May 16.
Afterwards, the fermentation went dog slow.

The gravities are as follows:

May 6 OG= 1.052
May 12 SG= 1.025
May 16 SG= 1.023 (transferred to secondary at this point)
May 19 SG= 1.022
May 24 SG= 1.020
The fermentation temperature started around 61F but due to warm ambient temps is sitting around 68F.

Is this normal? I'm usually bottling by now.
Has anyone else encountered

Transferring to secondary before the beer fermented out isn't helping your cause. Obviously the yeast was still active when you racked to secondary, hence the continued drop in gravity, but your gravity is going to fall slowly, because you left a good deal of the yeast behind.

Temps rising (within reason of course) slowly over the course of the fermentation can actually help your yeast fully attenuate.

FWIW, I brewed 10 gallons of a Belgian Tripel on May 2nd. I split the batch into two fermenters, and inoculated one with WLP 530, and the other with WLB 550. The 550 is done, the 530 has about 10 points to go and is fermenting very slowly. they were both fermented under the same conditions, and they both have very similar optimum temperature ranges. The fermentation started at 66°. 72 hours after, I bumped up the temp and allowed it to free-rise to 70°. Then on day 9 after checking the gravity which was in the 1.030 range, I bumped up the temp over the course of 2 days at 1° per day to 72°. Needless to say, 21 days later the friggin' 530 has yet to finish! There is still krausen on the damned thing.

So, in short, all fermentations are unique.

My suggestion for future brews would be to wait it out and rack to secondary after fermentation is finished. Better yet, skip the secondary, an let your beer rest in the primary for 3-4 weeks and just take care when racking to bottling bucket or keg to reduce the amount of yeast in the bottle/keg.

I don't know if this was helpful, but relax and don't worry. My philosophy is: all beer is good, some is just better than others.

Cheers!

 

[duboman]

Was this an extract batch? As stated above you moved the beer too soon, but also, sometimes Extract recipe get to 1.020 and never go any further. There are a lot of threads pertaining to this you can search and there really is no specific reason this occurs.

 

[baldric]

No extract. Strictly all grain. It was mashed on the warm side at about 154. I'm expecting it to go to 1.013 - 1.015.

But the beer is still very cloudy and there is activity in the airlock. About one bubble every 10 seconds. It's obviously still fermenting, but very slowly. I have yeast saved from this batch. Would it make sense to put some back into the secondary?

 

[duboman]

No extract. Strictly all grain. It was mashed on the warm side at about 154. I'm expecting it to go to 1.013 - 1.015.

But the beer is still very cloudy and there is activity in the airlock. About one bubble every 10 seconds. It's obviously still fermenting, but very slowly. I have yeast saved from this batch. Would it make sense to put some back into the secondary?

As you stated it appears to still be fermenting so I would just let it go, maybe give it a swirl and raise the temp a bit to help it along and you should get the additional points out of it.