Stuck fermentation or ???

[jmyers04]

In a different thread I had been looking for responses on a all grain BIAB stout I was going to brew. Was my first stout. Recipe and process as follows:

8 lb Maris Otter
1 lb Flaked Barley
1 lb Chocolate malt
14 oz Roasted Barley
.75 lbs Lactose at 15 min left in boil

1 oz Fuggles @ 60 min.
Added yeast nutrient for the first time on the brew. 1 tsp per gallon as the bottle says @5 min left.
Single infusion BIAB....mash for 90 min @ 154 F.

Cooled as far as our chiller would go (77). Moved to fermenter and put in swamp cooler for a few hours with ice bottles. It then dropped to 66 so I went ahead and aerated and pitched. Due to my lack of "real" temp control I chose not to go with wyeast 1084 as I read if you cant keep it low (like 64 or so) you may get fruity flavors. Not something I wanted in my first stout so I went with us-05. Pitched the yeast this past thursday....fermentation seemed sluggish to start off.....OG was 1.054 at 76 degrees so with the reading I have done is that it is higher than that because you want to test it at 70? Fermentation seemed to have taken off ok then I looked this morning and it seemed all but done. I took it out of the swamp cooler yesterday morning and let it rise. Only rose from 68 to 70. I did a quick hydro reading this morning and it is at 1.029. Estimated FG was 1.019 at 5 gallons. Our original recipe was for 5 gallons....we missed our mark on water and ended up with 4.5 gallons in the fermenter. What do you think is going on? Will it continue to drop more? Is it possible its done? Maybe efficiency was better than we thought? I really felt like everything went smooth on this....was our 4th BIAB all grain batch.

 

[jmyers04]

It started to drop a few points. Maybe I jumped the gun. Still do not think it will get down to 1.019 but any more points it drops is better than nothing. Maybe I have newbie questions or my questions sound ignorant, I'm not sure what is going on. I joined this forum to be able to have lots of people that have the same hobby as me help me out if I need it or be able to impart my own wisdom when I get seasoned at brewing. 67 views and not one comment at all. Disappointed.

 

[jlinz]

Lactose will leave your FG higher but probably not that high. If it hasn't moved you can swirl it a bit and put it somewhere warmer to see if that kicks off the yeast.

 

[jmyers04]

Lactose will leave your FG higher but probably not that high. If it hasn't moved you can swirl it a bit and put it somewhere warmer to see if that kicks off the yeast.

I have been swirling it and have it covered with a blanket. We have had unseasonably warm weather for this time of year so we have the AC on in the house still. I cant get it to warm up higher than 72. It is too hot in the garage or I would let it sit out there for a little while. It has dropped to 1.026 from the 1.030 reading on monday. So maybe it will drop a few more points. Just would think with a little under a half gallon top off it would drop the numbers some. I cant for the life of me figure out where the problem was. It was in a swamp cooler fermenting at 68 and when i noticed it start to slow down I got it out of there and let it heat up some. Frustrating to take all the right steps and still have issues.

 

[jmyers04]

Would beersmith adjust for lactose? I added it in and I am pretty sure put in that it was going in with 15 min left in the boil.

 

[BGHSmt7]

It's only been a week in primary? Let it sit. RDWHAHB Yeast will do their thing on their own time.

 

[jmyers04]

Yeah 1 week today. Just have had US05 finish so fast that it had me worried. Hoping for it to drop a few more points. I see both of you are from Illinois. Me as well.....Springfield area.

 

[BGHSmt7]

Would beersmith adjust for lactose? I added it in and I am pretty sure put in that it was going in with 15 min left in the boil.

Yes, BeerSmith does adjust for Lactose.

 

[jmyers04]

Do you see any issues with my above process? Obviously not hitting our final volume number and deciding to top off with RO water was not in the plan. Will have to hone in on our water volumes next time.

 

[BGHSmt7]

I usually check to make sure that fermentation has started within the first couple days, then I leave my brews alone for about 1-4 weeks. Since most of my beers are heavier drinkers, I let them primary for about a month, then decide if I'm going to secondary on wood/nibs/vanilla/etc.

I don't worry unless fermentation hasn't started in about 2-3 days, or if fermentation continues for more than 1.5 weeks.