All grain stout stopped at 1.020???

Hello everyone,

I brewed a coffee stout 2 weeks ago, just popped open primary to take a hydro reading. Went from 1.060 to 1.020. I used 1 11oz pack of safale s-04, rehydrated. It was supposed to get to 1.010.

My question is: should I add a 5g pack of muntons ale yeast, or let it ride? Part of me says add the yeast, won't hurt anything. I want to bottle next weekend...

Here are my notes:

Peace java coffee stout - all grain
3/23/2013

9 lbs Domestic 2-row barley
14 oz chocolate malt
4 oz flaked barley
4 oz caramel 60*L
16 oz roasted barley
1oz challenger hops
1 oz tettnang hops
4 oz Peruvian coffee
1 packet s04 yeast 11.5 g

Expectations:
IBUs = 24
OG = 1.045, FG = 1.010
AL % = 4-5%

Mashed the 11.6 lbs of grains with 3.5G of water at 155-156* F for 1 hr. stirred at 30 minutes. lost a few degrees during mashing 153-154*F. Mash out at 165* f for 15 minutes. Vorlouf as needed until clear. Drain mash tun completely. Batch sparge with 4 gallons at 170* F for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Got a stuck sparge, had lots of problems. Struggled to drain and separate grains, lots of splashing and a huge mess. Found out the spring inside the braid had rusted. Disassembled MT and will rebuild it.

Boil wort, added 1/2 oz challenger hops at 60. Added 1/2 challenger hops, a few Tbsp of sugar, and yeast nutrient @ 20. Add 1oz of tettnang hops at 2 minutes.

Cooled wort to 68* F, gravity read 1.060. No problems. stirred and aerated well. Tasted really sweet and dry. Pitched rehydrated yeast (rehydrated in 78* water for 30 minutes). Put fermenter in swamp cooler with water in low 60's.

Ferment for 1 week in low sixties. Let water warm up to upper sixties for remaining 2 weeks. Bottle it up!

It fermented 60 hours total since pitching yeast? I would wait longer before panicking.

Have you taken two hydrometer readings to ensure gravity is steady?

freisste said:

It fermented 60 hours total since pitching yeast? I would wait longer before panicking.

Have you taken two hydrometer readings to ensure gravity is steady?

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That was just my notes on airlock activity. It has been in primary for 2 weeks...

what was your fermentation temp and do you know if it fluctuated a lot?

I've got about 66% attenuation on your brew and S04 should be a little buit higher than that, around 72% or so which would have your brew finishing at about 1.016 or so.

You could pitch another yeast or heat it up (to maybe like low ot mid 70's) and agitate it a little to rouse the yeast out of suspension.

I have had good results before from heating the brew up.

If you repitch I would wait at least a week as the new yeast will have to go through its life cycle.

as i was writing you posted more... i would let it heat up a bit and see what happens.

With your mash temp, I don't think you are going to get much lower. At 155-156, you will end up with lots of nonfermentable sugar in the wort.

Also want to note, I was a little shocked when I opened the primary. Usually there is a distinct layer of dry kruesan a few inches above the beer caked on the sides of the bucket and a little messier. There was nothing. I almost thought it hadn't fermented at all. It looked almost like when I had first added it to the fermenter. This was the first time I used s-04, and I kept the swamp cooler in the low 60's for the first week.

It smelled a little funky, but nothing too unusual. It tasted ok, better then it smelled. A slightly alcoholic taste.

If you read my notes, I later found out a spring my mash tun that was in my braid had rusted. Could this have something to do with it?

I doubt the rusty spring had anything to do with it. The same thing happened to me on my second all grain batch, and it attenuated fine (down to 1.011).

I think I'll pitch the muntons pack and wait another 8-9 days, and if nothing changed, bottle her up. I still need to add the coffee, so maybe that will help tone down the sweetness with some bitterness...

It sounds like you have a slow fermentation and you have a lot of unfermentables.

How did you calculate you would have a FG of 1.010? Like some one mentioned earlier, warm it up a bit and see if the yeast can do more.

kwingert said:

It sounds like you have a slow fermentation and you have a lot of unfermentables.

How did you calculate you would have a FG of 1.010? Like some one mentioned earlier, warm it up a bit and see if the yeast can do more.

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That is what the kit was calling for. It called for a mash temp of 152, I missed by a few degrees. I had it in the low sixties first week, then high sixties second week. Should I push it above 70?

chungking said:

I think I'll pitch the muntons pack and wait another 8-9 days, and if nothing changed, bottle her up. I still need to add the coffee, so maybe that will help tone down the sweetness with some bitterness...

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Certainly no harm in this, but I bet you a beer it does not come down much. S-04 is a beast and it clearly fermented. I would almost guarantee it's a matter of having unfermentable sugar in the mix. Next time, mash at 152 or so.

rklinck said:

Certainly no harm in this, but I bet you a beer it does not come down much. S-04 is a beast and it clearly fermented. I would almost guarantee it's a matter of having unfermentable sugar in the mix. Next time, mash at 152 or so.

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Yah, but I figured stouts and porters should be around 155+, oh well. I'm just glad I got a 1.060 for OG instead of the 1.045 which the recipe called for, otherwise, I'd have a very sweet low alcohol beer on my hands!

I can't speak for sweet stouts, but a good dry stout should be mashed low to get good attenuation. My go to stout recipe is mashed at 152. With an OG around 1.048, I end up with a FG right around 1.010. My BeerSmith shows that my expected FG would be around 1.015 if I mashed at 1.015. If you want to get a low FG and a dry beer, you really need to mash low.

So if I add the yeast, and nothing happens, will this add extra yeasty flavors?

Wouldn't think so, but I can't say for sure. It should drop out.

chungking said:

That is what the kit was calling for. It called for a mash temp of 152, I missed by a few degrees. I had it in the low sixties first week, then high sixties second week. Should I push it above 70?

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The couple of degrees could have been the difference. How sure are you that your thermometer was reading 154 and not something higher?

I would leave you beer at room temp, no higher then 75.

So take it out of the swamp cooler? Swamp water stays at about 67 when I dont add any ice....

well what I have done in the past is gotten a 100W aquarium heater and put in in there at set temp. The heaters therm is usually 2ish degrees higher then what you set it but I have used that way to heat it up.

If you have a room that's in the 70s then you could just put it in there too

Well, just tested it again, still 1.020. Went ahead and bottles her up. Hopefully it will be good....

I'm sure it will be. Post how it tastes.