Greynolds16
Active Member
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2020
- Messages
- 33
- Reaction score
- 9
Hey everyone,
It finally happened! Two years in and I am about to dump my first batch and I’d love to prevent this from happening again. If anyone has tips on what to change I’d love to hear them.
This was a kolsch 5 gallon batch, first ever on my new claw hammer system. 1.050 OG with a tilt hydrometer to give me gravity readings. Fermentation seemed totally normal (even a bit faster than my old system because the plate chiller helped with aeration) until it stalled at day 2 with a gravity of 1.028 where it has stayed.
My attempts to restart included letting it warm a bit - my cooling system is a big freezer bag that I put frozen two liters into for temp control - so I held off on extra 2 liters. I also tried shaking the fermenter with the airlock off (which I think oxidized the beer and not aerated the wort - it’s now a dark brown gross color). Final attempted fix was pitching a pack of dry us 05, which did absolutely nothing to the gravity.
Possible culprits include:
Bad tilt readings
Some silver/black grime came off the claw hammer AFTER brew day cleaning, so maybe that killed the yeast if it made it to the fermenter.
Frozen 2-liter shocked the yeast into dying and my floating tilt didn’t pick up on the temp fluctuations.
Bad yeast?
Any other ideas or feedback is welcome!
It finally happened! Two years in and I am about to dump my first batch and I’d love to prevent this from happening again. If anyone has tips on what to change I’d love to hear them.
This was a kolsch 5 gallon batch, first ever on my new claw hammer system. 1.050 OG with a tilt hydrometer to give me gravity readings. Fermentation seemed totally normal (even a bit faster than my old system because the plate chiller helped with aeration) until it stalled at day 2 with a gravity of 1.028 where it has stayed.
My attempts to restart included letting it warm a bit - my cooling system is a big freezer bag that I put frozen two liters into for temp control - so I held off on extra 2 liters. I also tried shaking the fermenter with the airlock off (which I think oxidized the beer and not aerated the wort - it’s now a dark brown gross color). Final attempted fix was pitching a pack of dry us 05, which did absolutely nothing to the gravity.
Possible culprits include:
Bad tilt readings
Some silver/black grime came off the claw hammer AFTER brew day cleaning, so maybe that killed the yeast if it made it to the fermenter.
Frozen 2-liter shocked the yeast into dying and my floating tilt didn’t pick up on the temp fluctuations.
Bad yeast?
Any other ideas or feedback is welcome!