First Homebrew, worried about fermentation

Discussion in 'Homebrewing' started by mnagler, Jul 6, 2017.

Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.
  1. mnagler

    mnagler Initiate (0) Jul 6, 2017 New York

    Hello,
    Last Wednesday I brewed my first batch of beer following the Brewer's Best Dunkelweizen extract kit. OG was 1.054. I made some mistakes on brew day, such as pitching the yeast while the wort was too hot, but I had visible airlock activity for the first 36 hours at least. After that I saw no bubbles in the airlock.

    The kit says that primary fermentation should take 4-6 days, so at five days I opened my fermenter (an ail pale) up to check the gravity, which read 1.020, giving me about 60% attenuation. When I opened it up I noticed lots of bubbles on the surface, but nothing that I'd call foam. I checked again at 7 days, but the reading was 1.020 again. It does smell and taste like beer though. My target FG is 1.014ish, but it's been 48 hours and no SG change. I read somewhere to swirl the bucket around to try and kick-start the yeast, and I moved the fermenter to a warmer spot to try and achieve the same effect. Is that confirmation that the fermentation process complete? What are possible reasons that my FG is so high?

    Original Gravity: 1.054
    Current Gravity (over last 48 hours): 1.020
    Target Final Gravity: 1.014
    Fermenting temp: 70F
    Yeast strain: Lallemand/Danstar Munich Wheat Beer Dry Yeast
     
  2. csurowiec

    csurowiec Initiate (0) Mar 7, 2010 Maryland

    I think your beer is probably done. I would give it till next Wednesday to be sure but for some reason a lot of extract kits seem to hit a wall at 1.020. I haven't personally experienced this but have seen it come up enough on homebrew websites that it seems to be a legitimate thing. You can swirl it and put it somewhere else to warm up to maybe 74 but it may not change.
    On a more positive note, congratulations you made beer!
     
  3. scottakelly

    scottakelly Maven (1,487) May 9, 2007 Ohio

    Your beer is most likely done in the sense that it has fermented all of the sugar that it is going to. However, a few extra days in primary is beneficial to clean up off flavors. You'll see a lot of opinions here on this last point. Personally, I usually do 2 weeks in primary for a moderate gravity ale.

    Since you swirled the beer, I would definitely give it a few more days in primary so the yeast that is now in suspension will settle back down.

    There can be a lot of reasons why your beer finished at 1.020. When I first started brewing with extract a long time ago it seemed like I could never get a beer under 1.020. This was especially true with beers that had dark malt extracts. The other likely culprit is fermentation practices. Old yeast, not pitching enough yeast, poor aeration, pitching too hot, etc. could all impact yeast health.
     
    Prep8611 and PapaGoose03 like this.
  4. Curmudgeon

    Curmudgeon Savant (1,110) May 29, 2014 Massachusetts
    BA4LYFE Society

    You mention that you pitched the yeast while the wort was still hot. What temp was it when you pitched it? Guys, is it possible that if the wort was "hot" when he pitched, some but not all of the yeast cells died and that, in combination with fermenting fast due to the warmer than ideal start, could have had the batch finishing at 1.020? I'm not sure if you'd want to just keep it at 1.020 and package or if you'd want to maybe throw some more yeast in there to eat away at more sugars. 1.020 could make the beer taste sweeter than you want but not the end of the world (depending on how much this irks you).

    I should brew a Dunkel. Sounds nice. Good luck!
     
    scottakelly likes this.
  5. MostlyNorwegian

    MostlyNorwegian Pooh-Bah (2,236) Feb 5, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    What do you mean by too hot? That could factor in to that 1020 you got. Some died. Others were shocked. The strong ones gave you what they could. Could be any number of things, but you got beer to happen and know better not to do that again.
    Maybe follow advice of pitching some more in to take over. Or. While you're ignoring them. They may just decide to poop out another point or two as they clean up.
     
    crcostel likes this.
  6. PapaGoose03

    PapaGoose03 Grand High Pooh-Bah (6,057) May 30, 2005 Michigan
    BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah

    Besides having a poor yeast pitch for the various reasons mentioned above, the other major cause of a high FG reading is that you don't as as much liquid in the fermentor as what the recipe is supposed to make. If you have a 5-gallon recipe but only 4.5 gallons in the fermentor, the gravity reading will be high because you now have 'concentrated' beer. Take a close look at how much beer you have.
     
  7. crcostel

    crcostel Initiate (0) Feb 26, 2006 Illinois

    I'll echo what @MostlyNorwegian and @Curmudgeon said:

    Be good to your yeast.

    Your kit calls for a single packet of Munich Wheat, dropped into a 5Gal 1.54 OG without rehydrating. That's cutting it close. If you put it in at 90F than cooled it to 70F, you likely made your yeast unhappy. Unhappy workers do not work well.
     
  8. mnagler

    mnagler Initiate (0) Jul 6, 2017 New York

    Ended up pitching at around 92F so I probably killed a lot of them, no? Do the yeast not reproduce at all during fermentation?
     
  9. Prep8611

    Prep8611 Savant (1,208) Aug 22, 2014 New Jersey

    In the future instead of pitching hot just cover sanitized bucket lid and wait until the next morning where it will at least be room temperature.
     
  10. scottakelly

    scottakelly Maven (1,487) May 9, 2007 Ohio

    I doubt 92 degrees killed your yeast. If anything, yeast like a very warm environment.

    You should not pitch at 92 though. The first problem is that while yeast will likely reproduce well at 92, they will also throw off some off flavors detrimental to your beer. The second reason is that the yeast will likely not be happy starting off at 92 wort temp, and then being chilled down to 70 fermentation tempt (which is really a temperature drop closer to 27 degrees than 22). Fermentation performance may have suffered as a result.
     
  11. MostlyNorwegian

    MostlyNorwegian Pooh-Bah (2,236) Feb 5, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    You have to be above 100 to start killing off yeast.
    Doubt it's that. I'd adjust the volume to get the gravity you want and move on.
     
    JackHorzempa and PapaGoose03 like this.
  12. JackHorzempa

    JackHorzempa Grand Pooh-Bah (3,375) Dec 15, 2005 Pennsylvania
    Society Pooh-Bah

    As others have already discussed pitching yeast into 92 degrees F wort will not kill the yeast. Having stated that it is not a 'good thing' to do from a production of beer perspective.

    Cheers!
     
  13. MostlyNorwegian

    MostlyNorwegian Pooh-Bah (2,236) Feb 5, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    There are only a hand full of yeasts you want to deliberately pitch with that much heat coming in.
    This is definitely not one of them.
     
    JackHorzempa likes this.
  14. JackHorzempa

    JackHorzempa Grand Pooh-Bah (3,375) Dec 15, 2005 Pennsylvania
    Society Pooh-Bah

    Matt, which yeast strains would you pitch at 90 degrees F?

    Cheers!
     
  15. GreenKrusty101

    GreenKrusty101 Initiate (0) Dec 4, 2008 Nevada

    In addition to the reasons already mentioned, it could be that your estimated FG was not a good estimate or that the CO2 coming out of solution/temperature threw your hydrometer reading off.
     
    scottakelly likes this.
  16. JackHorzempa

    JackHorzempa Grand Pooh-Bah (3,375) Dec 15, 2005 Pennsylvania
    Society Pooh-Bah

    I am not familiar with the kits from Brewer's Best but I have read numerous posts by others where some extracts are not very fermentable and they consequently obtained higher than anticipated FG values. Perhaps this is the case here?

    Cheers!
     
  17. MostlyNorwegian

    MostlyNorwegian Pooh-Bah (2,236) Feb 5, 2013 Illinois
    Pooh-Bah

    Omega Hothead.
    I'm itching to try out their Voss Kveik strain because it can work at those temps as well.
    i.e. both make great strains for brewing in the summer because they don't care if you forget to leave the air conditioning on.

    For what it does when being pitched warm. I like the Wyeast Ardenne's.
     
    JackHorzempa likes this.
  18. crcostel

    crcostel Initiate (0) Feb 26, 2006 Illinois

    What have you found?
     
  19. minderbender

    minderbender Initiate (0) Jan 18, 2009 New York

    You can get Voss kveik in homebrew quantities from Yeast Bay. I believe it is the same strain as the Voss kveik sold by Omega, though I don't know that for a fact.
     
    MostlyNorwegian likes this.
Thread Status:
Not open for further replies.