Gravity way too high. Will it ferment?

[EChrisDenney]

So I screwed up my wort and got a gravity of 1.107 on an Irish Stout recipe. Was shooting for 1.059 and must have put way too much DME in it.

Only had one package of White Labs Irish stout yeast and pitched it anyway. 3 days later I still have no airlock activity. So I'm wondering about my options.

Should I divide this 5 gallons of 1.107 into two 5 gallon buckets and add water to make up the difference, thus bringing the gravity back down, and then pitch a new thing of yeast into each bucket and hope for the best?

Thanks ahead of time.

 

[flars]

You can do it but any hops you used would be diluted by 50%. You will also still most likely need to make a yeast starter to have more healthy yeast for each fermentor.

A couple of good starter/pitch rate calculators. Each site has some information on how a starter works to propagate more healthy yeast cells.

http://www.brewunited.com/yeast_calculator.php
http://www.brewersfriend.com/yeast-pitch-rate-and-starter-calculator/

 

[billl]

What was the recipe? Just asking because it's pretty common to have "off" gravity measurements with extract and top up water.

High gravity wort doesn't kill yeast on contact. If you underpitch yeast into a really high gravity wort, you'll typically get a lot of activity to start. The problem comes at the end. The yeast aren't healthy enough to finish the job and you end up with an overly sweet and thick beer.

 

[meatcleaver]

please post your recipe. it's very hard to miss your OG with extract.
also, airlock activity is not a good indicator of fermentation & no airlock activity doesn't mean nothing's happening.

 

[Morrey]

Your Irish Stout yeast has a med-high alcohol tolerance of 8% to 12%. It has a medium attenuation level of 69-74%. Say you hit the middle and get 72% attenuation. Problem is your yeast will want to quit on you when they have done their thing which will leave you with some (actually lots) residual sugars that make the beer very sweet and very thick.

Worse case scenario is that you can split your wort into two batches, re-boil adding top off water and hops to re-adjust the levels you desire. You'll kill off your yeast and have to repitch.

Or, I guess you can find some high gravity yeast that can handle all those sugars and maintain decent alcohol tolerance. I don't care for HG beers personally, but some do.

****Just checking to make sure you are reading your hydrometer correctly as they can be somewhat tricky to read. You have a huge difference in your final gravity...almost like you put in double the amount of DME called for.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

1) If this was an extract recipe, you are fine unless you accidently threw in an extra few pounds of extract. Hard to do if you are following a recipe. Mixing issues are common.

2) Airlock activity doesn't mean anything if your fermentation bucket doesn't seal well.

Give it a week an then check the gravity. That's the only true measure of fermentation.

 

[EChrisDenney]

Thanks so much for the replies guys. Sorry, I'll post the recipe tomorrow but I know one thing I did wrong. The recipe called for 1/2 pound of dextrin but I didn't realize the kit came with a full pound of dextrin and I put the whole thing in there.

The DME wasn't labeled, the kit came from a locally owned Homebrew supply shop so they buy in bulk and repackage. It's possible she over filled that bag. I mean, 1.107 is crazy high if you ask me. It couldn't have all been the extra half pound of dextrin.

I checked my hydrometer twice and then had my wife look at it too. Tasting the wort I used for the reading, it tasted like a 1.107. Wow

I won't worry about the no airlock activity. The bucket is brand new though since I ruined my old one with a bunch of dry hopping.

Sounds like in summary "Don't worry. Have a Homebrew" would probably be the most appropriate answer in this case.

 

[jrodmfish]

Thanks so much for the replies guys. Sorry, I'll post the recipe tomorrow but I know one thing I did wrong. The recipe called for 1/2 pound of dextrin but I didn't realize the kit came with a full pound of dextrin and I put the whole thing in there.

The DME wasn't labeled, the kit came from a locally owned Homebrew supply shop so they buy in bulk and repackage. It's possible she over filled that bag. I mean, 1.107 is crazy high if you ask me. It couldn't have all been the extra half pound of dextrin.

I checked my hydrometer twice and then had my wife look at it too. Tasting the wort I used for the reading, it tasted like a 1.107. Wow

I won't worry about the no airlock activity. The bucket is brand new though since I ruined my old one with a bunch of dry hopping.

Sounds like in summary "Don't worry. Have a Homebrew" would probably be the most appropriate answer in this case.

Airlock activity is a worthless measurement. You need to check the gravity again BUT... An extra .5 pound of carapils (dextrine) isn't going to move the OG needle in this case, and it would take a ton of DME to get up above 1.1 (we're talking a beer that should be 1.044 max (to style)). Your LHBS would have had to really screwed up to get there. My guess is there's a problem with your measurement tools/process.

Again, airlock activity means nothing. The only way you can truly judge fermentation progress is by measurement.

 

[EChrisDenney]

Good call. I must have screwed up my measurement somehow. It did taste super sweet but then again I've never brewed a stout before so I'm not sure how sweet they're supposed to taste.

I'll let ya'll know how it turns out.

 

[EChrisDenney]

Ok, I figured out what I did. I need a serious slap in the face. Or just less homebrew while making homebrew.

The final gravity turned out to not be too bad. It was 1.024 which, I know, is high, but when you hear what I did you'll understand why I was actually ok with that.

I poured this wort directly into my fermentor and then added cold water on top of it and bring the total volume up to 5G. What I didn't do was mix them together at all. So when I took the beer out of the bucket from the bottom with my wine thief, all I got was the super sweet wort from the bottom that was not blended well with the cold make up water.

So, when I pitched the yeast, it probably hit super cold water (it's winter here in New England) and then dropped into wort that was probably about 90 degrees. Maybe a little less.

Regardless, that poor yeast got the shock of a lifetime. The way I learned this was that I brewed another batch of beer and had the same problem again! I thought I was going crazy. It took my 20 minutes of thinking and walking through all the steps in my head before I realized what I had forgotten. I felt the side of the bucket and sure enough, the bottom was warm and the top was cold. I closed the lid, should very well for 5 minutes to aerate, took another measurement, got a gravity I was expecting, felt the bucket and found no warm or cold spots, problem solved.


Many lessons learned here.

1. Drink less homebrew while making homebrew.
2. Put a gallon of water in the fermenting bucket before adding the wort to it.
3. Mix the wort and make up water really well before taking a gravity reading.
4. Feel the outside of the fermentor for any hold or cold spots in case you didn't mix well.