Stuck fermentation? Or something else.

[Remos112]

Hi everybody, I am working on my 2nd attempt of a Verboden Vruchten Clone and this is what I came up with:

3.0kg (2cans) Muntons Belgian style Ale LME
1.5kg (1can) Amber LME
1 package (16oz=453gr) Candy Syrup D-46
1.5 package (24oz=679 gr) Golden Syrup
500 grams English crystal malt, steeped for 30 mins, sparged and liquid then boiled
500 gram of Wheat DME
20 grams of Koriander Seeds crushed
Rind of 3 manderins
Starter of Wyeast Forbidden fruits.
I put this in the beerfriend calculator and this came up:
Batch size=22L
Est OG= 1085
Est FG-1019 With high attenuation yeast selected 77%
Est ABV=8,45%

Before bottling the plan was to add some cocoa vanilla jenever to give it a slight cocoa and vinilla hint.

However I took a sample today (nearly zero activity in the airlock for several days)
Gravity reading was 1022, and it tasted incredibly sweet.
Would this be a stuck fermentation? Or did I screw up ingriedients somehow? Any suggestions how to save this beer is very welcome.
Should I repitch some Forbidden Fruits? or champagne yeast? Or should I just wait it out a couple of more weeks?

Some information about the fermenting. I pitched the starter directly from fridge into the wort and it fermented at about 22C or 71.6F. It went like nothing I have ever seen. Very very wild fermentation, but I'm guessing temperature about on the high side, since it gave quite the banana smell.

Once again looking forward to you suggestions and thanks in advance!
Greetings Remi

 

[Yooper]

It isn't stuck, as it may be finished up or nearly finished. More yeast will not help. You're at about 73% attenuation- Forbidden fruit averages 72-76%, so you are right in there.

The recipe may have more unfermentables than you really wanted (amber LME plus crystal), but that's probably not the whole story. Often the cause of a too-sweet beer is that it's unbalanced, and not bittered enough.

 

[55x11]

Hi everybody, I am working on my 2nd attempt of a Verboden Vruchten Clone and this is what I came up with:

3.0kg (2cans) Muntons Belgian style Ale LME
1.5kg (1can) Amber LME
1 package (16oz=453gr) Candy Syrup D-46
1.5 package (24oz=679 gr) Golden Syrup
500 grams English crystal malt, steeped for 30 mins, sparged and liquid then boiled
500 gram of Wheat DME
20 grams of Koriander Seeds crushed
Rind of 3 manderins
Starter of Wyeast Forbidden fruits.
I put this in the beerfriend calculator and this came up:
Batch size=22L
Est OG= 1085
Est FG-1019 With high attenuation yeast selected 77%
Est ABV=8,45%

Before bottling the plan was to add some cocoa vanilla jenever to give it a slight cocoa and vinilla hint.

However I took a sample today (nearly zero activity in the airlock for several days)
Gravity reading was 1022, and it tasted incredibly sweet.
Would this be a stuck fermentation? Or did I screw up ingriedients somehow? Any suggestions how to save this beer is very welcome.
Should I repitch some Forbidden Fruits? or champagne yeast? Or should I just wait it out a couple of more weeks?

Some information about the fermenting. I pitched the starter directly from fridge into the wort and it fermented at about 22C or 71.6F. It went like nothing I have ever seen. Very very wild fermentation, but I'm guessing temperature about on the high side, since it gave quite the banana smell.

Once again looking forward to you suggestions and thanks in advance!
Greetings Remi

You can always wait to see if the gravity drops another point or two, but it might be done. Was the OG as intended? It may be that alcohol content slows down your yeast, and that champaign yeast can dry it out just a bit more, but your beer is not in 10%+ ABV range where this is more of a common problem.
1.022 is not that high considering your grain bill.

 

[Remos112]

Thanks guys! the OG was as intented I had an original recipe that made it to about 6.5 %ABV but the original verboden vruchten is 8.5% so that was my aim. I then used the calculator to calcultate the ingredients and the expected og fg etc
I will let it ride out for a week of 2 and then taste again. But worse case scenario I need to dry hop for extra bitterness? I will keep you all posted . Ps
This is the recipe for the previous batch, and it fermented out untill 1020, nowhere near as sweet though:

Brewcraft Belgian Ale
1.5 kg liquid pale malt
250 grams dry wheat malt
500 grams English crystal malt, steeped for 30 mins, sparged and liquid then boiled
250 grams Golden Syrup
250 grams coffee sugar crystals
30 grams coriander seed
Rind from two mandarines (if you can't find any, use pink grapefruit, around one-2 tablespoons rind)
Liquid Wyeast Forbidden Fruit yeast (otherwise, use Belgian ale yeast or the abbey ale)

 

[Yooper]

Thanks guys! the OG was as intented I had an original recipe that made it to about 6.5 %ABV but the original verboden vruchten is 8.5% so that was my aim. I then used the calculator to calcultate the ingredients and the expected og fg etc
I will let it ride out for a week of 2 and then taste again. But worse case scenario I need to dry hop for extra bitterness? I will keep you all posted . Ps
This is the recipe for the previous batch, and it fermented out untill 1020, nowhere near as sweet though:

The hops and the IBUs aren't listed, but I think that is where the fault is as the beer does have some less fermentable ingredients, but the "too sweet" flavor is more an underbittering issue than a FG issue.

Dryhopping will add hops flavor and aroma, but no bitterness. I think it would be very weird to dryhop this beer, and the flavors would clash.

 

[Remos112]

The hops and the IBUs aren't listed, but I think that is where the fault is as the beer does have some less fermentable ingredients, but the "too sweet" flavor is more an underbittering issue than a FG issue.

Dryhopping will add hops flavor and aroma, but no bitterness. I think it would be very weird to dryhop this beer, and the flavors would clash.

good point thank you! no dryhopping then! I will wait it out a few more weeks and hopefully the vanilla cocoa jenever will bitter it some too!I used porterpounders recipe to make it!

One of the best way to add cocoa/vanilla flavor is to make a tincture with one vanilla bean (split and seed scraped) and 2 oz of cocoa nibs in 250 ml of vodka. Shake it every day for 2 weeks for a few seconds and strain into a clean container. Add how ever much you want at packaging to get the depth of flavor you are looking for.

 

[55x11]

Thanks guys! the OG was as intented I had an original recipe that made it to about 6.5 %ABV but the original verboden vruchten is 8.5% so that was my aim. I then used the calculator to calcultate the ingredients and the expected og fg etc
I will let it ride out for a week of 2 and then taste again. But worse case scenario I need to dry hop for extra bitterness? I will keep you all posted . Ps
This is the recipe for the previous batch, and it fermented out untill 1020, nowhere near as sweet though:

I have only had limited experience with stuck fermentation - one recent one was clearly stuck, at around 1.026 (started at a bit over 1.100), using belgian yeast, when another batch of the same wort using another yeast came down to 1.006, so I knew there were fermentable sugars in there.

I tried adding several different yeasts from my yeast bank, including superyeast, another saison yeast, belgian yeast, WLP-001 and even champaign yeast. Nothing really worked - it remained stuck, maybe went down a point or two. In the end what did work is krausening - skimming the top "foamy" part of the active starter I was preparing for another beer, and pitching it (I probably pitched half a cup to a full cup altogether) - don't forget to add a bit of yeast nutrient too. The fact that yeast was actively fermenting restarted fermentation very quickly.

You may want to try this if you are really desperate to dry it out. But like I said, in that case I *knew* it should get way lower. In your case it is less clear.

 

[Remos112]

Tested the beer again and it has dropped till 1020, and to my surprise, I can't taste the overly sweetness anymore. I am very excited about tha leaving it alone fo a few more days before bottling and will keep you posted about final taste,