Coffee Stout

What was the make up of your wort? The yeast left behind a fair amount of sugar but I dount it was fermentable sugar. Extract, AG? How much specialty malt?

 

1.020 seems a bit on the high side for a 1.060 beer, but, without a recipe and more detail, it's hard to say if something went wrong. The coffee will mitigate the sweetness, somewhat (most people wouldn't think of drinking coffee without adding sugar). How much coffee will you be adding and what technique will you use? (please say you didn't add it to the boil)

 

Especially given that he used WLP007... I agree though, a grain bill and mash schedule will really help a lot here.

Also, was the yeast old? Was the starter big enough? Fermentation temps?

 

I'd be more worried about bottle grenades...did you take multiple FG readings?

You MIGHT be alright with that recipe.

 

I usually don't have any issue with WLP007, but that is weird that your FG is 1.020, it should be closer to 1.014ish... Are you sure that you kept your fermentation temp at 68F or did it drop at any point, were there any sharp temp drops for more than 24hrs? The problem is, is that you already have bottled your beer... so now you kinda have to live with the beer. To be safe, I'd put the beers into a plastic bag, in case they start to blow up.

 

This.

If you already bottled, I'd go ahead and transfer those bottles into plastic containers NOW, then figure out what's going on with your beer. 1.020 seems high, and if you added priming sugar, that's ever more potential bottle bombage.

 

I'm not sure I would go to that extreme...I like to live dangerously : ), but at a minimum I would utilize a secondary containment device for the bottles (tub) and wear some OSHA goggles when approaching. he might be alright with that grainbill which looks like ~ 30% unfermentables . After they've carbed though, I would keep them just like a budweiser...ice cold.

 

Wouldn't the chance of explosion vary depending on the amount of priming sugar used? I didn't think it's that unusual for a stout/porter to terminate around 5 and 6 plato (1.020 to 1.024). There is a Founders Porter recipe floating around on the internet where Jeremy Kosmicki (brewer at Founders) says that's around where it ought to terminate.

If you've been conservative with whatever you're using for priming you really ought to be fine, at least as far as the explosion fears go. As for the sweetness, only time will truly tell!

 

Yes, there are a lot of unknowns, but I'd still be cautious condsidering the yeast used and the FG. Ravens +4 : )
I know when I was bottling, I used 4oz of priming sugar for just about everything (erroniously).

 

I'll throw in another vote for being concerned. pop a top after a week and see what it tastes like. Bubbles will give the beer a drier mouthfeel, so you have that to your advantage. I'd check at least twice a week thereafter to make sure you aren't overcarbing the beers. If it gets ugly, you're going to have to refridgerate the rest of your batch--Budweizer style

 

Without knowing the recipe it's really hard to say whether there's a risk of stout-flavored glass shrapnel in your future. That stout could easily terminate at 1.020 for normal reasons, e.g. use of extract (almost always contains maltodextrins), lots of flaked grains, etc.

 

Recipe above.

 

Oops lol. Reading comprehension fail there.

Ok so I plugged the recipe and if that's a five gallon recipe your OG should have been around 1.077 with a FG around 1.019. WLP007 attenuates 70-80% so that's the proper attenuation for the strain and your recipe. It seems like your OG reading was off. What was the temperature of the wort when you took that reading? Is your hydrometer calibrated?

With a recipe with that high of an OG (1.077) you're not going to get a dry beer even using a strain with excellent attenuation capabilities.

 

How many bottles do you have? Take a few extra, well maybe one and put it in s sanitized vessel. Take that second bottle that I spoke about and use it for a gravity reading. If it has carbonated you might have to degas it. Look for follow up comments on my methodology.

Take first said bottle in sanitized container and throw in some yeast. Best scenario would be next time that you brew if you make a starter pour the suspect beer into flask and see if it ferments anymore. See where I'm going?

You have some beer and you want to know if it fermented out all the way. Just test it. If 1.020 turns into 1.012m you might have a problem. 1,018.. maybe not.

 

So it's probably the unfermentables that are preventing the gravity drop?

 

Fermentation temp is largely irrelevant at carbonation time. All the fermentable sugars should be gone on bottling day. That's why we add priming sugar. How much priming sugar did you use? You said you bottled it last Wednesday. That was only six days ago -- what made you you think it would be ready today?