Stout stuck at fermentation? OG 1.056 current gravity 1.031

[beervoid]

Hello everyone,

I been fermenting a stout with US05 since 4 days. It's fermenting in a Keg of 20 liters which I filled up to 17 liters to leave about 3 liters headroom for fermenting.

OG 1.056
Target FG 1.018

I opened the keg today to do an intermediate gravity check and noticed krausen has fell and my gravity reading was 1.031.

Few things that worry me.

- I had absolutely 0 bubbles from my airlock, and when opening the keg in about 2 days fermenting in there was no pressure on the lid at all. I'm thinking this might be because I have 3 liters of deadspace?

- when pitching the yeast there was A LOT of foam. I saw yeast falling on top of that foam and figured it will drop with time.
Could it be this foam kept the dry yeast from falling into my beer?

- im aiming for a FG target of 1.018, since im only at 1.031 now and most activity seemed to have passed already, should I be patient give it a few more days?
If FG doesn't drop is there anything I could do to get it lower?

Thank for the help!

 

[Smellyglove]

Hydrometer or refractometer for SG-samples?

 

[RM-MN]

Hello everyone,

I been fermenting a stout with US05 since 4 days. It's fermenting in a Keg of 20 liters which I filled up to 17 liters to leave about 3 liters headroom for fermenting.

OG 1.056
Target FG 1.018

I opened the keg today to do an intermediate gravity check and noticed krausen has fell and my gravity reading was 1.031.

Few things that worry me.

- I had absolutely 0 bubbles from my airlock, and when opening the keg in about 2 days fermenting in there was no pressure on the lid at all. I'm thinking this might be because I have 3 liters of deadspace?

- when pitching the yeast there was A LOT of foam. I saw foam falling on top of that foam and figured it will drop with time.
Could it be this foam kept the dry yeast from falling into my beer?

- im aiming for a FG target of 1.018, since im only at 1.031 now and most activity seemed to have passed already, should I be patient give it a few more days?
If FG doesn't drop is there anything I could do to get it lower?

Thank for the help!

Your beer fermenting would have produced way more CO2 than what it would take to fill that space. Blame the lack of bubbles in the airlock to a leak around the lid.

Nothing to worry about, the yeast would find the beer and your gravity reading that is less than the original tells you so.

Not just a few more days, a couple more weeks. Don't rush the yeast, they do the work under their schedule, not yours. The best you can do is provide them with the conditions they like. Starting the fermentation cool, then letting it get warmer after about 5 to 7 days seems to work for me.

 

[beervoid]

Hello thanks for replying.

I'm using a hydrometer.

Some questions I still have. I bought a new keg lid so it should seal fine. When I sanitized my keg I turned it upside down to make sure it's not leaking so I kind of rule out the leaking part. Yet from previous comment it seems there is no other possibility.
Is there any good way to test this?

I'm currently fermenting at 68F, if I where to raise the temp to clean up how much degrees would be ideal?

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

Did you pitch a good healthy yeast? How much?
Yeast starter?

Personally:
Step 1: I would wait another week before worrying. But if the FG still hasn’t moved then...

Step 2: Take another packet of the exact same yeast. Create a yeast starter. When it’s fully active and reproducing, THROW IT IN THE FERMENTER.

With it already being active, the fermentation should start up in no time.

Then give it another week once you see that fermentation has begun again.

 

[Calder]

Recipe and any pertinent process details.

If Extract, what extract, and how much. If all-grain, mash temps. Any Lactose? How much specialty malt (and which ones).

S05 should not have any issues once started. I don't think pitching more will help.

 

[beervoid]

Hey everyone thanks so much for helping out!

I used us05 dry yeast which is happily fermenting away on my wheat beer.
Didn't make a starter but I pitch a bit more just in case (15 grams as opposed to 11grams)

Only thing different from the wheat beer I did is that the yeast was out of the fridge for maybe 1h longer.
I take the yeast out of a 500gram bag and let is come to room temperature in sanitized glass (not covered)

It's all grain.. I was aiming for OG 1.066 gravity but im working with a new brewing system and only came till OG 1.056 (needed to dial in the efficiency from 71% to 63%)

All grain bill mashed at 156 and 7 min mash out 168, when I did a pre boil reading and calculated I was not hitting my target (1.041 currently)
the grains where still very sticky so I concluded I needed to sparge (been doing BIAB previously and now moved to a Ace/Klarstein auto brewery)

I heated up about 3 liters of water to 168f to sparge over the grains letting it seep into the pan.

I then boiled it for 1 hour longer to try to get a bit more gravity, effectively giving me 10 gravity points more with a OG of 1.056 after boil.

6.83 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 59.3 %
1.34 lb Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 2 11.7 %
1.09 lb CHÂTEAU CRYSTAL® (76.2 SRM) Grain 3 9.5 %
0.83 lb Chocolate Malt (Thomas Fawcett) (508.0 SRM) Grain 4 7.3 %
0.62 lb CHÂTEAU MUNICH (12.7 SRM) Grain 5 5.4 %
0.31 lb CHÂTEAU CAFÉ (254.0 SRM) Grain 6 2.7 %
0.31 lb Carafa II (412.0 SRM) Grain 7 2.7 %
0.17 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 8 1.5 %

 

[roboto65]

Patience is the key I would wait, most likely it is not finished. Sitting for a week or 2 will not hurt a thing I do it every time I brew but I have no choice LOL

 

[mr_stout]

Add some more yeast after a few days if the gravity has not dropped and let it ferment for 2 - 3 weeks. At 1.031 it will be very sweet. I usually check after 7 days not 4 days. You still have 3 days before you start to worry. I have heard that people use Lalvin EC-1118 to get fermentation going again when there are problems.

 

[beervoid]

So I checked today which is exactly 1 week and 2 days after initial pitching and the gravity is still stuck at 1.031
Pitched another 11 grams of US05 to see what happens.

 

[RM-MN]

Hey everyone thanks so much for helping out!

I used us05 dry yeast which is happily fermenting away on my wheat beer.
Didn't make a starter but I pitch a bit more just in case (15 grams as opposed to 11grams)

Only thing different from the wheat beer I did is that the yeast was out of the fridge for maybe 1h longer.
I take the yeast out of a 500gram bag and let is come to room temperature in sanitized glass (not covered)

It's all grain.. I was aiming for OG 1.066 gravity but im working with a new brewing system and only came till OG 1.056 (needed to dial in the efficiency from 71% to 63%)

All grain bill mashed at 156 and 7 min mash out 168, when I did a pre boil reading and calculated I was not hitting my target (1.041 currently)
the grains where still very sticky so I concluded I needed to sparge (been doing BIAB previously and now moved to a Ace/Klarstein auto brewery)

I heated up about 3 liters of water to 168f to sparge over the grains letting it seep into the pan.

I then boiled it for 1 hour longer to try to get a bit more gravity, effectively giving me 10 gravity points more with a OG of 1.056 after boil.

6.83 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 1 59.3 %
1.34 lb Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 2 11.7 %
1.09 lb CHÂTEAU CRYSTAL® (76.2 SRM) Grain 3 9.5 %
0.83 lb Chocolate Malt (Thomas Fawcett) (508.0 SRM) Grain 4 7.3 %
0.62 lb CHÂTEAU MUNICH (12.7 SRM) Grain 5 5.4 %
0.31 lb CHÂTEAU CAFÉ (254.0 SRM) Grain 6 2.7 %
0.31 lb Carafa II (412.0 SRM) Grain 7 2.7 %
0.17 lb Roasted Barley (300.0 SRM) Grain 8 1.5 %

How long was the mash? I'm thinking that with missing the projected OG your grains were milled a bit on the coarse side and you didn't have full conversion when you did the mash out and stopped it completely. Couple that with a relatively high amount of unfermentable additions of grains and you might be at FG even though it is that high.

 

[FVillatoro]

Funny enough, US05 has always been a great attenuator for me, but it stalled on me on an Oatmeal stout that was like 20% flaked oats, 10% crystal & 10% roasted malt - 40% un-fermentable content. I got 62% attenuation which was way lower than my predicted 73-75%.

I mashed it at 158 I think.

With that much un-fermentable grain, I would suggest mash no higher than 150 and do a 75 mash so that the enzymes can breakdown the starch.

I ended up dumping the beer because it was way too thick. Don't worry we've all been there!

 

[beervoid]

How long was the mash? I'm thinking that with missing the projected OG your grains were milled a bit on the coarse side and you didn't have full conversion when you did the mash out and stopped it completely. Couple that with a relatively high amount of unfermentable additions of grains and you might be at FG even though it is that high.

I mashed for 1 hour. Im also thinking it might be my grainbill and wrong meshing.

If I did an iodine check at the time after meshing would I have seen this?
Simply prolonging the mash will help?

Will see what happens now with 2nd yeast pitch attempt. Thank you for the response!

 

[RM-MN]

I mashed for 1 hour. Im also thinking it might be my grainbill and wrong meshing.

If I did an iodine check at the time after meshing would I have seen this?
Simply prolonging the mash will help?

Will see what happens now with 2nd yeast pitch attempt. Thank you for the response!

Most of the time the grains will be crushed too coarse to be able to get full conversion and an iodine test will nearly always be positive. You would need to crush the grains to near flour to get complete conversion so the iodine test would be negative. A longer mash might have gotten you better efficiency which is another way to say full conversion. It takes some time for the starches to gelatinize so the enzymes can convert it to sugars. The bigger the particles, the longer it takes. You might have been closer to your expected efficiency with a 90 minute mash.

 

[divrack]

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned temperature yet? If it got too cold it might have stalled the yeast. What temp is it fermenting at?
Im doubtful more of the same yeast will do much more than shaking the keg and increasing temperature would.
If you don't get anything happening you could always go to plan b and stick in a bunch of Brett and even some lacto and let it ride for a few months or years.
Corny seals can be a bit poor even with new lid. You can seal then with a bit of gas in but obviously not if you are fermenting with an airlock.

 

[beervoid]

I've got a temperature controlled fridge which was sitting at 20c all the time. Bumped the temp up to 22c now with 2nd pitch.

 

[divrack]

Aye well then after looking again at the bill it was probably not enough time to convert the 40 percent into simple sugars. Possible also that the mash temp was higher than the spot you were measuring I guess, don't know the setup process enough to say.
Sounds like itd be a nice wort to let some Brett loose on though. But then I'm biased.

 

[beervoid]

Opened the keg today to check for fermentation signs. No krausen just some bubbles?

 

[beervoid]

So I think it's safe to say their where not enough fermentable sugars since I mashed too high.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

I was thinking of adding straight borboun to up the ABV a bit as i'm at roughly 3.6% or so now.
I don't mind sweet thick stouts that was actually what I was aiming for.

Another thing I could perhaps do is add some sugar and yeast to up the alcohol and dry it out?

 

[divrack]

So I think it's safe to say their where not enough fermentable sugars since I mashed too high.

Any suggestions on how to fix this?

I was thinking of adding straight borboun to up the ABV a bit as i'm at roughly 3.6% or so now.
I don't meant sweet thick stouts that was actually what I was aiming for.

Another thing I could perhaps do is add some sugar and yeast to up the alcohol and dry it out?

You could do the latter. Wouldn't do the first or you would have... Well, what it sounds like. A bourbon with sweet beer spilled in it.
I would stick some hardcore Brett yeasts to slowly dry it out. It might turn into something brilliant.
Adding sugar would be an option but best case scenario is a drinkable beer I would think.

 

[hottpeper13]

You should investigate the Diastaticus gened yeasts(mostly Belgian). I use The Yeast Bays Belgian Dry for my high ABV beers,it goes to 16%, and is advertised up to 100% ADF. True story, I had a Wee Heavy destined for a barrel that quit at 1.034 and was to go down to 1.016. I had a RIS with TYB Belgian Dry in the barrel already and decided to not rinse it out, but rack on top of the sediment. It dropped to 1.014. It my take some time and the ability to maintain 74* but I would pitch a high krausen starter of this, and because most of the flavor profile is set you should get very close to the beer you were looking for.

 

[beervoid]

You should investigate the Diastaticus gened yeasts(mostly Belgian). I use The Yeast Bays Belgian Dry for my high ABV beers,it goes to 16%, and is advertised up to 100% ADF. True story, I had a Wee Heavy destined for a barrel that quit at 1.034 and was to go down to 1.016. I had a RIS with TYB Belgian Dry in the barrel already and decided to not rinse it out, but rack on top of the sediment. It dropped to 1.014. It my take some time and the ability to maintain 74* but I would pitch a high krausen starter of this, and because most of the flavor profile is set you should get very close to the beer you were looking for.

Would Fermentis - Safbrew Abbaye be a good choice?

 

[hottpeper13]

I can't find anywhere that it is Diastaticus so not sure. I am positive that the new BE134 is, if sasion yeast is what you want to use.

 

[beervoid]

It seems now my beer is infected. Probably due to opening too often for gravity reading?
Letting in too much oxygen, paired with the fact the keg was leaking and poor fermentation?

 

[divrack]

think so. how does it smell taste? if not offensive id let it ride. some of my best beers have originated from a chance infection i recultured.

 

[hottpeper13]

I'm out.

 

[beervoid]

I'm out.

I'm not sure what you mean?

So I've decided to transfer the beer and keg it see how it turned out and to my surprise it taste quiet decent but what I'm trying to understand now is why is my beer not sweet tasting? (i've only put 20 ibu worth of hops in it)

The final gravity is still the same 1.031 yet it tastes quiet dry and thin and NOT sweet at all..
I'm meassuring with a hydrometer and my refractometer gives me 11.5 brix.

Could this be a side effect from the possible infection?

Anyone can shed some light on what is going on here??