I'm not really a newbie - but it's been five years since I've brewed, and I was always sort of a beginner - partial mash recipes only. This weekend I pulled out my equipment, cleaned it, sanitized it, and brewed an american brown ale with malt extract I've had stored in the basement for 5 years, hops that have been vacuum sealed in the freezer for 5 years (still awesome!), fresh Safbrew s-33 yeast, and fresh grains. The OG was only 1.036 when it was supposed to be more like 1.04-1.05. I think that is either because we had a slight boil over and/or the person who mashed the grains didn't mash them enough. It fermented fast and furious for about 48 hours tops - the temp was 74-75 and room temperature was 68. It's seemed basically done for the past two days. Gravity now is 1.020, that's an attenuation of 44% and 1.6% alcohol, yes? That SUCKS! What went wrong? I was planning to transfer to a secondary and dry hop it, but I think that might just be a waste of hops. Thanks in advance for your help.
That yeast is known for being problematic. I'd go get some S-04 or S-05 and pitch that as well if you want to try to save this beer. Btw using 5 year old extract is problematic as well. You won't get the best tasting beer from that, malt needs to be fairly fresh as well. Taste the wort if you think it's ok, then pitch some more yeast and proceed. good luck
Reading some other places I was reminded that I think we used to aerate the cooled wort. I had it in my head that oxygen was bad so we didn't do that this time. Still think I should pitch new yeast, or was not aerating my the problem? Also, I used some water straight from the tap which probably contains some chlorine - would that have killed some of the yeast? THANKS!
I agree with all of this, especially tasting the beer before going any further. If it tastes fine, then pitch some fresh yeast. Even if using dry yeast I would get a starter going so that the yeast are in sugar-eating mode when they hit your partially fermented beer. If the beer currently tastes like crap, then I recommend simply punting and starting over. BTW, I don't think that aerating now is recommended. And yes, aerating before pitching is highly recommended.
You do want to aerate the cooled wort prior to pitching the yeast. Oxygen is bad when introduced to beer post-fermentation, but at that point, oxygen is needed to promote yeast growth. It's possible that the fact you didn't do this had some impact, especially if your pitch rate was low. I'm going to take a guess here: was the dry yeast you used as old as the hops and extract? If so, it's possible that it lost a good deal of viability. Your pitch rate might have been low, and combined with a lack of aeration, that could cause the under attenuation you're seeing. Frankly, I would be inclined to start over. Five year old extract is not ideal. Even if you get the attenuation down with new yeast it probably will have off flavors.
The yeast was new. And the wort tastes okay to me. Sweet, but okay. So I will make a starter with fresh yeast and repitch. Any ideas on why the fermentation went so extremely fast and hot? Is that the fault of the evil safbrew s-33, related to the low concentration of oxygen, or something else? Like I said before, room temp was never above 68, but if fermented at 75 for a day before dropping back down to 70 where it appeared to completely stop.
The fermentation temps sound normal to me. It's an exothermal reaction so it produces heat during reproduction and growth. You could have tried to temper it by placing in a water bath for the first few days. But what you did is ok, and is fine for that yeast. It's just a fussy yeast, so who knows why it stalled on you.
It went fast because it was fermented hotter than hell for an ale yeast that isn't a saison or something. It'll be pretty fruity tasting.
I rehydrated the s-33 that failed. I didn't know a starter was useless with dry yeast. I make a lot of bread, and I always rehydrate that yeast with sugar to get it going. I thought using a starter would bump the yeast count up so that they would eat more of the brown sugar water that has so far not been eaten. No?
A starter isn't necessarily useless with dry yeast. But the cell counts in dry yeast packages are much higher than in liquid yeast packages, and they tend to be more viable, so starters usually aren't necessary. Plus, dry yeast is so cheap that when more cells are needed, people typically pitch two packs rather than make a starter. But there's no reason you can't make a starter if you want more cells than what's in the pack.
