Stuck?

[Boatboy24]

On Sunday, I started a small batch of Gingerbread Ale using a recipe found in the Brooklyn Brew Shop book of recipes. After pitching the yeast, I had activity in the airlock within a couple hours. Monday morning I awoke to continued bubbling with increased frequency/intensity. By the time I checked again around 9pm last night, the bubbling had stopped and much of the yeast, etc had settled to the bottom. Now, I'm certain there's no way I could have fermented out in a day. Temps in the basement are pretty consistent around 68 degrees and I'm using an english ale yeast. Sadly, I didn't take a hydrometer reading when starting. Any suggestions? I did give the wort a stir last night, hoping to get some air into it. Thanks!

Jim

 

[cpfan]

On Sunday, I started a small batch of Gingerbread Ale using a recipe found in the Brooklyn Brew Shop book of recipes. After pitching the yeast, I had activity in the airlock within a couple hours. Monday morning I awoke to continued bubbling with increased frequency/intensity. By the time I checked again around 9pm last night, the bubbling had stopped and much of the yeast, etc had settled to the bottom. Now, I'm certain there's no way I could have fermented out in a day. Temps in the basement are pretty consistent around 68 degrees and I'm using an english ale yeast. Sadly, I didn't take a hydrometer reading when starting. Any suggestions? I did give the wort a stir last night, hoping to get some air into it. Thanks!

Jim

How about a hydrometer reading last night or today?

Steve

 

[Boatboy24]

Just took one now and its around 1.022. Gave it a good stir. Fingers crossed, but I'm worried.

 

[Boatboy24]

Anyone have any thoughts? Been a crazy week and I haven't had a chance to try and pick up some additional yeast. I'm not sure what else to do. It's been a couple days now, and I'm starting to think I've lost my window to get something going and this batch may be going bad. If I can, I'll try to pick up some more yeast tonight.

 

[g8keeper]

Anyone have any thoughts? Been a crazy week and I haven't had a chance to try and pick up some additional yeast. I'm not sure what else to do. It's been a couple days now, and I'm starting to think I've lost my window to get something going and this batch may be going bad. If I can, I'll try to pick up some more yeast tonight.

boatboy, i have made beer in the past when i was with a local club, but unlike making wine, beer does not ferment to complete dryness....there is always a residual sugar content, so your hydrometer reading will not necessarily get down to 1.000 or below...beer yeasts are not as strong or alcohol tolerant as wine yeasts...that's why when it comes to brewing, you really do need to have an o.g. reading to go along with your final gravity reading to determine your abv...your recipe should have told you what gravity ranges to shoot for, both original and final....

 

[Boatboy24]

Out of curiosity (and the fact that I didn't get to the LHBS), I dissolved some honey in warm water, dumped it in and gave it a light stir last night. I had activity in the airlock this morning, and bubbles on top of the wort. I'm not sure where to take it from here though.

 

[g8keeper]

Out of curiosity (and the fact that I didn't get to the LHBS), I dissolved some honey in warm water, dumped it in and gave it a light stir last night. I had activity in the airlock this morning, and bubbles on top of the wort. I'm not sure where to take it from here though.

well all that is happening is that the yeast cells are eating the "food" you just gave them....the one other factor as to why beer doesn't drop to below 1.000 like wine, is that there are other unfermentable dissolved solids in beer, as opposed to wine, hence making the liquid still dense...how long has it been in a primary so far???...if it's been about a week, i would say it's time to transfer to a secondary for clearing....not sure about your gingerbread ale, but i do know that some beers do better with a little aging prior to bottling, especially your heavier ales....just remember, if you haven't done beer before, unlike with with, you don't want to nulify your yeasts...you them to be active because unless you are planning on force carbonating using a keg and co2, you will prime your beer with corn sugar prior to bottling, and the yeasts will feed off of that while in the bottle to naturally carbonate your beer...

 

[Boatboy24]

Thanks g8keeper. I pitched the yeast on Sunday. Maybe all is not lost after all. I was concerned that the yeast had died off - I'd never seen anything take off after pitching, then stop 36 hours later. I was seeing CO2 bubbling in the wort only 90 minutes after pitching the yeast (sunday evening). Monday morning, the airlock was bubbling away. By monday night, airlock activity had slowed significantly and by Tuesday night, it had all but stopped.

I've made beer in the past. With a friend, we actually made about 200 gallons a year. But during that time, I was largely just assisting in the process and not paying too much attention to the details. I did learn the basics, though. And we did learn during that time that the "holiday beers" needed to be made around the end of summer so they could mellow for a couple months. That's why I'm starting this one now. I hope it turns out. The recipe calls for priming with honey. I did an IPA a couple months back the same way and, while its good, it's WAY over carbonated. If I use honey again, I'll use less than the recipe calls for.

 

[g8keeper]

well i would say it sounds like you are well on your way, but like i said, unlike wine, beer doesn't ferment out to completely dryness like a wine does, so i think you are ok....but i think you may have learned a lesson on why it is important to take your initial gravity readings....as i stated, most beer recipes have both a beginning and ending gravity range you are aiming for....that is also what will tell you if you followed the recipe correctly, and got great utilization of your grain conversion, if doing all grain, and also tell you when your beer is done fermenting....

 

[Boatboy24]

Thanks again. I didn't get target gravity readings, but got a target ABV. Unfortunatley, that's hard to calculate if you don't take a gravity reading at the start.

 

[g8keeper]

Thanks again. I didn't get target gravity readings, but got a target ABV. Unfortunatley, that's hard to calculate if you don't take a gravity reading at the start.

hmmm....that's funny....normally it's up in a corner of the recipe page (granted, i know different sources vary), but normally in an upper corner, it will say something like, o.g. 1.126-1.192, or something like that, which tells you that you are shooting for that range as your starting gravity, and underneath would say f.g. 1.032-1.026....but once again, different recipe sources will have different tableture....

 

[Boatboy24]

hmmm....that's funny....normally it's up in a corner of the recipe page (granted, i know different sources vary), but normally in an upper corner, it will say something like, o.g. 1.126-1.192, or something like that, which tells you that you are shooting for that range as your starting gravity, and underneath would say f.g. 1.032-1.026....but once again, different recipe sources will have different tableture....

I'll take a second look. Maybe it's there and I just didn't notice. The kits that you get from Brookly Brew Shop don't have you measuring SG at all, so it wouldn't surprise me if their recipe book is the same way.

 

[BeerAlchemist]

On Sunday, I started a small batch of Gingerbread Ale using a recipe found in the Brooklyn Brew Shop book of recipes. After pitching the yeast, I had activity in the airlock within a couple hours. Monday morning I awoke to continued bubbling with increased frequency/intensity. By the time I checked again around 9pm last night, the bubbling had stopped and much of the yeast, etc had settled to the bottom. Now, I'm certain there's no way I could have fermented out in a day. Temps in the basement are pretty consistent around 68 degrees and I'm using an english ale yeast. Sadly, I didn't take a hydrometer reading when starting. Any suggestions? I did give the wort a stir last night, hoping to get some air into it. Thanks!

Jim

To answer your question requires a lot of information to start getting you some help.

Was this all-grain or an extract recipe? Can you get a ball park of what the OG was? Batch size? Yeast type (liquid or dry)? How much yeast did you add and was it fresh yeast? Did you use yeast nutrient? Did you oxygenate the wort? Any chance your temp dropped off significantly at any point, say low 60's or more?

Unlike wine, you do not want to introduce any oxygen into the fermentation after things get going (there are a few instances that it is done, but its a pretty rare practice and can quickly ruin a beer).

 

[Boatboy24]

BA:

This was all grain. No idea what the OG was. It was a dry yeast (english ale), no nutrient was used. The wort was given a very good shake at the start to get some air into and temps were very consistent - they don't vary more than two degrees or so.

I racked this into a one gallon jug yesterday. It seems to be OK. I'm still concerned about what appears to be an incredibly quick fermentation, but we'll see how it turns out. It's nice and dark and smells good.

 

[BeerAlchemist]

I'm going to assume that means you used the Nottingham yeast from Danstar which ferments quickly and thoroughly. Given the temperatures you said, I wouldn't worry about any issues with that as a fast ferment is only bad if it is the result of excessive temperature and a 1 gallon fermentation isn't going to produce enough of an exothermic reaction to push the temp up notably.

Without knowing the recipe and OG I'm only guessing, but something to keep in mind is that malt extract is not as fermentable as generating a wort directly from grain. So, it is pretty common for extract brewers to have finishing gravities in 1.015-1.020 range. However, this is dependent upon the type of extract, the lighter the extract type the more fermentable they tend to be. If you had a beer with an OG in the 1.060's using dark or amber extract along with some unfermentable crystal steeping grains it would not surprise me to see a FG in the low 1.020's even with a yeast as aggressive as Nottingham.

 

[Boatboy24]

Bottled it today. It tasted pretty good for a young beer.

 

[BeerAlchemist]

Did you get the gravity pushed down any more or just bottle at 1.022?

 

[Boatboy24]

It ended up at 1.020. It hadn't moved for a few days, so I figured it was done.