Morebeer All Grain Pliny Clone - Slow/Stuck Fermentation

Have you taken a gravity reading? I think I see a classic 'bathtub ring' through the plastic that tells me that you had krausen that has since fallen. Your fermentation may be winding down.

 

I'd definitely take a gravity reading to see how close you are to your final gravity. If you have trouble maintaining temp during the mash, I'd recommend running an iodine test before mashing out.

 

Sounds like things are going to be okay, especially since your confirmation of the taste is good. If I remember right, the 1.020 isn't the expected final gravity of that recipe (I didn't see a predicted FG in the online instructions, but 1.011 is the expected FG of the recipe that I brewed) so I recommend that you wait another 10 days to let it finish up, then take a couple gravity readings a couple days apart to see if they are close to each other and to the expected final gravity.

Or, have you dry hopped yet? I didn't read the recipe looking for that info and to verify that you are supposed to dry hop, but if so I'd wait a few days yet to let the yeast work a bit more, then do that for however long the recipe states. Then bottle or keg it. Good luck the rest of the way.

 

I brewed my version of Pliny the Elder last fall. My OG was 1.062 and my FG was 1.012. I dry hopped for 2 weeks per Vinnie's recipe.

Cheers!

 

I add the priming sugar (as a water/sugar solution) to my bottling bucket and then rack the beer on top of the water/sugar solution. After the beer has been transferred I gently stir the beer using my racking cane to ensure that the sugar is properly mixed with the beer. For a 5 gallon batch I typically use 3.7 ounces (by weight) of table sugar.

I use 12 ounce glass bottles and I have never added sugar on a per bottle basis. I am guessing by this question you intend to add sugar to each 32 ounce bottle? There is a product called carb tablets that are intended to bottle prime beer. I have never used this product and I have read where folks have experienced inconsistent carbonation issues using this type of product. Norther Brewer sells this sort of thing under a different name: http://www.northernbrewer.com/fermenters-favorites-fizz-drops-8-oz

Based upon my personal practice I would advise you to use a bottling bucket and perform a bulk priming sugar addition as I detailed above. For 3 gallons of beer 2.2 ounces (by weight) of table sugar will provide the equivalent level of carbonation as 3.7 ounces (by weight) does for 5 gallons. Just make sure that you minimize splashing during the beer transfer process (e.g., place the plastic tube on the bottom of the bottling bucket).

Cheers!

 

The item you have labeled as "Priming Sugar" is corn sugar. You can use that as well but you just need to use a bit more to achieve a given level of carbonation. 2.4 ounces (by weight) of corn sugar is the equivalent of 2.2 ounces (by weight) of table sugar.

I have never done the math for weight vs. volume so I can't comment here.

I use 1 cup of filtered tap water for my weight of 3.7 ounces of table sugar. You can use less for your 3 gallon batch if you prefer. You add the sugar to the water and bring it to a boil. I then cool down the small pot in a water bath. The idea of creating a water/sugar solution is that it aids in mixing with the beer vs. just dumping sugar in.

If you store the bottled beer for 2 weeks at room temperature the beer will be carbonated. Theoretically you could drink the beer then but I personally would strongly encourage you to wait at least 2 more weeks before drinking this beer. Every hoppy beer (e.g., APA,IPA, DIPA) that I have brewed and bottled (and there have been many, many batches) have tasted better with a total of 4-5 weeks of age in the bottle.

Please feel free to ask more questions if you have them. The purpose of this forum is to share information.

Cheers!

 

My personal preference is to dry hop using pellets in a muslin bag that is weighed down using glass marbles. I sanitize the muslin bag containing the marbles by putting them in a small pot of water and then bringing the water up to boil. The hop pellets themselves do not require sanitizing. I take the muslin bag plus marbles out with tongs and place it on paper towels, let it cool a little bit, add the dry hops and tie the top of the bag into a knot. Leave lots of room to permit the hop pellets to expand as they will do during the dry hopping process.

I personally remove the lid, gently add the bag with hops & marbles into the beer, and promptly place the lid back on.

Some brewers will just add the pellets to the primary 'commando' style. They write that the hop pellets will over time just settle to the bottom of the primary. Some of those folks report that they then place a sanitized paint bag over the bottom of the racking cane to keep the hop pellet 'bits' from clogging the racking cane during the siphon transfer to the bottling bucket. I have personally never used this method so I can't comment to how well/easily this works.

That sounds like a good plan to me.

Cheers!

 

I'm perplexed, so I just re-read the thread to get facts back into my mind, and I noticed two things that I'd like to clarify. Both are long shots for identifying where the problem lies, but bear with me.

1. I noticed for the first time during the re-read that you are using EZ Cap bottles, which I assume are what I know as swing-top bottles. Are these bottles new, or more specifically are the gasket rings new or at least fairly new and pliable, and do you have a good feeling that they seated properly?
2. You mention that you racked your beer on top of the sugar solution in the bottling bucket, but you didn't say that you followed that up with any stirring to help insure that the sugar was well mixed. Skipping the stirring can lead to inconsistent carbonation between bottles, although many homebrewers say they never stir the solution and have had no problems. I learned the hard way once about inconsistent carbonation, so I'm a strong proponent of stirring. So it's possible that some of your bottles might have carbonation, but you just haven't discovered them yet.

Regardless of whether either of these things become an issue, I think we're to the point that the next step is to add a few grains of dry yeast to each bottle because there are hints that your original pitch wasn't ideal, and it could have crapped out when your beer reached the 1.020 gravity reading that you took. Extra yeast won't present any issues if you sanitize your tweezers, etc. during this procedure. The unknown factor here is whether the priming sugar is still in the beer or whether it was consumed and more of it needs to be added. Or even since your gravity did not reach the predicted FG, there is still unfermented sugar that can be a factor too. It's a gamble to add more sugar when the original priming sugar or the wort's unfermented sugar is still there because the extra sugar will create over-carbonation. So we may be at a point that you'll have to take a gamble to get where you want this beer to be.

Short of taking a gamble, I think the best step is to just add more yeast to see what will happen. If you add new yeast I think you'll see a noticeable result in a week, so you're not losing much time here. And you do get to drink a tasty, but flat, Pliny clone that you made.

Others in this forum may also have some thoughts, but I'd at least go ahead and purchase a packet of dry yeast to have it ready to go if that is the consensus opinion for the next step.

 

Cooper,

Based upon all of the information you have provided I would fully expect that your beer would be carbonated at this point in time.

I must confess that I am uncertain why your beer is not carbonated.

I would suggest that you just give it some more time. I have no genuine rationale here other than maybe with some more time it will carbonate?

The only other thoughts I have with no real reason for why this would be the case:

• The yeast was 'stressed' and need more time to carbonate?
• The caps did not seal properly?

Hopefully @Mothergoose03 will have some better thoughts here?

Cheers!

 

Cooper, with the small amount of escaping air that you got when you opened these last two bottles, I'd say that carbonation is occurring. It's just going very slowly, or you might have opened the bottles that potentially received the least amount of priming sugar. With this new info, let's just let them sit longer and see what happens.

For future bottling sessions, stirring the beer after racking onto the priming sugar is easy to do. First off, I usually brew a batch about a quart short of the 5 gallons that the recipe makes so that I can boil my priming sugar in a larger amount of water, thus I have a thinner sugar solution that mixes into the beer in the bottling bucket much easier, and I have enough to top off my 5-gallon batch.

Still, I will stir 3-4 times at the beginning of the bottling session and after every 12-15 bottles filled just to keep that sugar in suspension. Use your sanitized brewing spoon, use upward motion from bottom to top of the bottling bucket to 'lift' the sugar from the bottom, but most of all, do this gently so you don't create any bubbles and introduce air into your beer.

Lastly, if you can figure out which bottle that you filled first (or close to the first), try opening that one next so you can determine if there might be inconsistent carbonation.

Let us know how it goes.

 

One more think to add -- try gently swirling your bottles to re-distribute any sediment that is on the bottom of the bottles. This will help put the yeast back into suspension and give them a little encouragement to finish their dessert.