Quad stuck at 1.046-help!

Im usually loyal to White Labs, but this time I tried the Wyeast 3787 Trappist for my quad. pitched a starter and I got good action right away but only for two days. I check gravity and I've been stuck at 1.046 and need to be at 1.023. I racked to secondary after 5 days as Jeremy at Ommagang suggests. Any ideas? Will it continue to drop down with no visible action?

Why would you transfer to a secondary if it wasn't close to being done? That was foolish.

This strain can take 2 weeks to hit FG if left alone to ferment in primary. It also needs pure O2 and a HUGE starter for a high gravity beer like a quad. If you didn't take these steps and then pulled it off the yeast after only 5 days, a stuck ferment is what you'll end up with.

If it doesn't move anymore, your only hope is to build up another HUGE starter of 3787 on a stir plate and pitch it at high krausen into your stuck beer, get the temp up into the 70's and hope it takes. If that doesn't work feel free to dump it down the drain and take it as an expensive lesson.

A few things would help. What was the recipe, starter size, when did you take gravity readings and what were they, has there been any change since racking? It might continue on at a super slow pace, but you might need to add more yeast. Give us some more info.

Also, a quad that ends at 1.023? Where did you get that number from? Sounds high.

There are folks here who primary small beers for a month, no need to rush an absolutely huge beer along. Consider your airlock a vent and nothing more. A stable gravity over 3day will tell you when the yeasts have actually stopped working. They can be showing very littly "activity" while working their buts off. Not sure they have butts but....

Big beers take a while. I would try a re-pitch and patience. I have an Edmund Fitzgerald clone going on three weeks in primary, the recipe called for one, life gets away from you. I garauntee It'll be great and still be beer.

IMHO the best thing to do here is re-pitch with new yeast. You can continue with a high-gravity Belgian strain, but if you're worried about a stuck fermentation, you could also use Wyeast 3711 (saison). It will impart a slight saison character, but most of the "yeast" taste comes from initial fermentation, which you've already gotten here. And it's a beast--it is capable of fermenting even high-gravity worts into the 1.00x range.

Since you'd be adding the new yeast to a harsh environment, though, you should probably:

*make a starter, and include yeast nutrient (in boiled water) when you add the yeast;
*consider re-aerating the wort/beer, at least a little.

I also agree with the stuff above about not going to a secondary (at all), or at least not too soon. There is no danger of autolysis in a several-week timeframe. The beer is done when it's done. You can always secondary it later if you want to cold crash/bulk age etc.

Oh yeah, but one last thing. You should definitely not dump the semi-finished beer. For example, you can split it in two, blend it with a lower-gravity wort, and pitch new yeast, giving you two batches of dubbel. Hell, blend it with seltzer and drink it now! But don't dump it.

Thanks for all the thoughts. Brewing is like religion, so many opinions and most assume they are right. That's what I like about it...the mystery. And everyone's advice has a life philosophy embedded in it (forgive me, I'm a shrink.) From "Throw it out, you fool" (pessimist) to "Hell, add selzer and enjoy!" (optimistic reframe). I got the recipe and instructions strait from Brew Like a Monk- the quad behind the Three Philosophers (that I will add Cherry lambic to in the bottling bucket). I racked to secondary, because that's what it said to do-I thought it was silly too. I always leave my beers on the yeast cake for a minimum of 10 days, but this recipe calls for a secondary and a tertiary, so I follow. After hours of researching and talking to professional brewers, I decided on the following actions: add yeast hulls, make a starter with high gravity yeast with nutrient, pitch and let it ride. I WONT throw it out, I dont give up that easily, and I probably wont add selzer, but I like the optimism behind it. Love the process!!! I will report the results.

Some quads are finished with champagne yeast. I would pitch some of that and wait. It could be several months before it gets down to a low FG, such as 1.01. Make sure that the FG is stable before bottling.

rrayriver said:

I got the recipe and instructions strait from Brew Like a Monk- the quad behind the Three Philosophers (that I will add Cherry lambic to in the bottling bucket).

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If you follow through on this, make sure you're either using one of those Lindemann's faux lambics that's been pasteurized, or you use bottles that can handle heavy pressure. If you add a live lambic beer to this, and expect to age it (as you should for a quad), you're going to have a bunch of bottle bombs on your hands. You probably already know this, but one can't be too careful.

rrayriver said:

Thanks for all the thoughts. Brewing is like religion, so many opinions and most assume they are right. That's what I like about it...the mystery. And everyone's advice has a life philosophy embedded in it (forgive me, I'm a shrink.) From "Throw it out, you fool" (pessimist) to "Hell, add selzer and enjoy!" (optimistic reframe). I got the recipe and instructions strait from Brew Like a Monk- the quad behind the Three Philosophers (that I will add Cherry lambic to in the bottling bucket). I racked to secondary, because that's what it said to do-I thought it was silly too. I always leave my beers on the yeast cake for a minimum of 10 days, but this recipe calls for a secondary and a tertiary, so I follow. After hours of researching and talking to professional brewers, I decided on the following actions: add yeast hulls, make a starter with high gravity yeast with nutrient, pitch and let it ride. I WONT throw it out, I dont give up that easily, and I probably wont add selzer, but I like the optimism behind it. Love the process!!! I will report the results.

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rrayriver,
I like your attitude. It is interesting the wide variety of perspectives you get here.

One thing you didn't mention is how long it's been "stuck". When you move to secondary early, as you've done, you have to expect it to slow down substantially since you've removed a lot of the yeast. If you've been at the same gravity for 3 days you may not have to do anything except raise the temp a few degrees. If it's been 5-7 days then you're probably stuck.

I recently had one stick for 2 weeks and nothing I did seemed to help. Long story short what finally got me unstuck was adding a half cup of table sugar (to give the yeast an easy snack) and yeast energizer http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/yeast-energizer.html (to excite them). The next day it started bubbling and it's been bubbling solidly for a week and the gravity is still dropping. The yeast energizer only costs about $2 for a bottle and I only used 2.5tsp. I'll be interesting to hear how this comes out.

GuldTuborg said:

If you follow through on this, make sure you're either using one of those Lindemann's faux lambics that's been pasteurized, or you use bottles that can handle heavy pressure. If you add a live lambic beer to this, and expect to age it (as you should for a quad), you're going to have a bunch of bottle bombs on your hands. You probably already know this, but one can't be too careful.

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GuldTuborg,
I appreciate the thought on the exploding bottles. This has been the topic of discussion with several fellow brewer friends and havent come up with a certain result. The Lindemans I plan to add is the Kriek Lambic. Are you thinking I might have exploding bottles due to sugar or existing carbonation in the Kriek Lambic? If its because of the carbonation, I could let off a good part before adding, eg, pouring several times vigorously. The discussion has been would they explode due to the sugar in the lambic. If so, should I cut back on bottling sugar? I have also thought of adding a cherry slurry from boiling some dried cherries-no sugar added. Or I could add the cherry slurry to the secondary so that some of that sugar ferments out leaving the cherry notes. So the question is how is all this going to come to play in the bottle? I need a chemist consult. Or maybe I should keg this one, but its a dang big beer to have on draft. My current plan is to bottle 25% with no added bottling sugar, then add 2-3oz and bottle 25% more, then add another 1-2oz and bottle the rest and take notes on each. Open to any thoughts.

Update on the stuck quad: I conducted the above (add yeast hulls, make a starter with high gravity yeast with nutrient and pitch) and it was very active for over three days and got down to 1.019. So it looks like the plan worked. Today I gave it a swirl. Being that my starting gravity was lower than what I wanted (1.083 rather than the planned 1.095) due to stuck sparge, I would like to get it down as far as I can-1.016 or lower. Sure glad I didnt "through it out".

I'm glad you didn't throw it out, too. Only do that as a last resort. And I really mean last, as in it doesn't even make (in the case of this type of beer) a good chili or chocolate cake.

As for the bottle bomb issue, it's the bugs you have to worry about. Add the Lindemann's, or drink it within a few months, and you'll be fine. Were you to add, for example, Drie Fonteinen Kriek, and set some aside for aging, you will have trouble.

Very glad to hear it picked up again. Rousing the yeast (as you say you're doing) and the tail end of fermentation may still push it below 1.016, even if most visible fermentation has completed.

rrayriver said:

Brewing is like religion, so many opinions and most assume they are right. .

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Brewing is a science.
Despite the fact that Humanity has been brewing for the past 8 millennia, (or even longer) our grasp of its science is minimal at best.
That's why you'll see so many opinions and "urban myths" being propagated.

The part that is "Brewing Art" is the science we haven't figured out yet.
Do your part, experiment, and report back so we can increase our collective knowledge.

As far as fiddling with a Quad after only five days... well that's probably unwise. If you've done your job correctly re: you little yeasty army, they'll do all the battle for you.
We feed the yeast, it makes the beer.
Cheers.

Andrikos said:

The part that is "Brewing Art" is the science we haven't figured out yet.

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If you look at just brewing, apart from the drinking and experiencing of the resultant beer, I might be willing to entertain this like of thinking (though I still find it difficult to think of the creativity that goes into recipe and process creation and combination as anything but art, at least in part). But the whole point of brewing is to experience the finished beer, and there is no science that can fully account for the way in which a beer seems to us when we see, smell, and taste it. So, there will always be some art, some dabbling into the unknown and unknowable (scientifically speaking) when it comes to the brewing process.

Don't forget to warm up the beer late in fermentation, 3787 needs late warmth to finish up. 75-80° for a few days helps prevent bottle bombs. The last few gravity points, primary or secondary, are usually slow to come down too.

Final Update on stuck quad: I got it down to 1.013-PERFECT! It comes in at 9.2 ABV-right where I wanted it. Sounds like the answer to my question, at least in this case, was adding yeast hulls, pitch a new starter with yeast nutrient and warm it up. After it slows, rouse the yeast with a swift swirl and you are on your way. Thanks for all the ideas. It was a great learning experience. As for the Kriek addition at bottling, I am going to add a slurry of boiled dried cherries to the secondary for a couple of weeks and at bottling I will only add about 5% Kriek to the final 5-6 bottles to experiment. If they explode, at least I will have a good batch of cherry infused quad to enjoy and let sit for awhile.

rrayriver,
Don't boil your cherries. If you boil fruit you're going to create pectin which will cloud your beer but more importantly you're going to negatively effect the flavor of your cherries. It's a much better bet to put them in water and hold the temp between 150 - 180 for 10-20 min. This will sterilize them. You can do a lower temp for a longer time or a higher temp for a shorter time but definitely don't boil or you're not going to get a good cherry flavor.

Cernst,
Thanks for that invaluable tip! Much appreciated! Since you seem to know about how to handle fruit, do you have a sense of the cherries effect on bottling? Should I reduce the amount of bottling sugar?

rrayriver,
You don't want to add the cherries at bottling. You have no way of knowing how much sugar is in them so you'll inevitably end up with either bottle bombs or flat beer. You want to put them in secondary and let them sit for a week or two. Then rack the beer into tertiary to give it time to clear. The beer will pick up the flavor of the cherries and the yeast will have time to clean up the sugars in secondary then a lot of the solids will settle out in tertiary. I did this with a lambic with 7.5lbs of strawberries and 3lbs of rhubarb and it had big fruit flavor, good carbonation and pretty clear for the style.

Being that so many people contributed and that there might be other who wish to clone The Three Philosophers, I thought I'd post a final update-something you dont see much of on this forum. After getting the fermentation back on and finalizing nicely, I added 2 lbs of dried cherries (steeped, not boiled, as recommended) to the secondary for two weeks. I bottled 80% and then added Leifmans Kreik to the final 20%. After three months I have no exploding bottles. The bottles WITHOUT the kriek are fantastic with a rich cherry background. I did a side by side blind taste test with The Three Philosophers and its was WAY closer than I thought I would get (with exception of the beautiful head that all of Ommegang's beers have). The ones WITH the Kriek definitely have the lambic influence but still with the richness of the quad-very nice, but I cant wait to crack a bottle after a year of rest. I would say that the kreik is not necessary, but a fun experiment over time.