WTF am I on Jupiter?!

Fr0tran

Fr0tran

ha, get it? high gravity? har har. anywho, i've been slightly pissed off about this lately, and i can't seem to remedy it. i will aim to make a medium bodied beer OG ~1.055-1.060. And my FG is high as balls still after 2 week of primary fermentation ~1.028-1.032. Now i've been brewing for about 3 years, and NEVER have i had such an aggitating, reoccurring problem with brewing. any suggestions? btw, the krausen is only around for the first day or two of fermentation, the airlock usually bubbles out almost all of it's liquid (sanitizer or alcohol) so i have to refil. and it seems all fermentation is haulted (i.e. no krauzen, bubbling, etc.) on the 3rd day. any suggestions?! this has happened with both liquid and dry yeast. however, (i know someone's gonna yell at me) i never make yeast starters. i've really only done that a few times, once while making a monsterous barley wine; but that's another story all together. my fermentation temp is gotta be around 65 degrees. comments? suggestions? scoldings? i'll take anything...this has happened 4 beers in a row.
 
YOU NEED A YELLED SCOLDING! WHY I DON'T KNOW BUT YOU ASKED FOR IT!

I can never get my bloody hydrometer to perform properly, that AND my alchometer.
 
I TOO WILL YELL FOR NO APPARENT REASON!!!! CAPS LOCK TO EMPHASISE MY RAGE!!!

Well, I've mentioned doing starters or getting really live, fresh yeast before. But, your problem still doesn't make sense. Maybe Wilson's poopin in the frementor when you aint looking.
 
Is it extract or grain? If it's a decent yeast, most likely the culprit is the fermentables or lack thereof ..i.e poor conversion.

Salute', TB.
 
COuld be that you are pitching way to warm (which I know you do) and it's killing off alot of your yeast?

The yeast nutrient idea is also a good one.....nova, you aren't far off.
 
it's all grain. i've used safe ale dry yeast, and white labs liquid with both exhibiting the same symptoms. igg, yeast has a fairly high tolerance for heat. if i pitch at 85-90 degrees, it's not gonna kill off everything. and besides, even if some yeast is killer, that would only slow the fermentation, not halt it completely. hm. i've been mashing around 152F for the last 4 brews for 90 min. i use a refractometer to take gravity readings.
 
alright, i think i gotit...i prolly mash too low of the temp. HA, which is funny b/c i've been purposely doing this for the past few batches; i'll explain. in may or so, i decided that i wanted to get more "body" to my beers and make them not-so-wattery (FG
 
Owch, please allow me to step in here. First things first! When you pitch, please pitch at 70 degrees F. There are a couple important reasons for this. First of all, the yeast's preferred range is much lower than the 85F that you mentioned. Yeast will get all "flaky" at this temperature (more on this if you want). Secondly, when yeast begin at a particular temperature, and then the temperature drops, the yeast begin to go dormant. It's just a natural phenomenon. So your best results will be yielded from cooling your wort to the temperature of the room in which you will be fermenting.

Next order of business: Mashing at 150F will NOT cause you to have higher finishing gravities. At this temperature, if you have mashed for an adequate length of time (90 minutes), you will have a smashingly fermentable wort. These lower temperatures *create a more fermentable wort*. Higher temperatures create a more dextrinous wort, which will be less fermentable. Stick to 150F for highly fermentble beers with lower finishing gravities, 153 for medium, and 156 for fuller body and less fermentable sugars.

Please disregard your crazy and jupiter-esque ideas (please don't take offense since I'm just making a lame attempt at being witty) and take a look at these pointers to help you achieve your target gravity:

1. Be thorough with your dough-in. Add a bit of water, then a bit of grain and mix well, then repeat for the rest of your grains. Be particularly sure to be at around 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain. I hope you already have that part covered.

2. Be aware of your water hardness and mash pH. Your pH should be at around 5.2 for optimal enzymatic activity. To assist you in this, try using a carbon filter for your water and a product called ph 5.2 buffer. All of the homebrew sites have it, and your local store probably carries it too. Use this for *both* your strike water and your sparge water.

3. Always perform a mash-out. I don't prefer to just add boiling water to the mash to achieve 170F. Instead, I pull usually about a gallon of wort off of the bottom, boil it, and return it to the mash tun and stir really thoroughly. Get those sugars into suspension. It is worth the effort.

4. Take your time sparging. If you do not take at least 45 minutes, you are going way too fast.

5. Make sure that your sparge water is as hot as possible. Transferring it from a HLT to the top of your grain bed will ensure that it's not too hot. I have found that it's very hard to get your grain bed over 170 degrees no matter how hot my sparge water is. I boil plenty of sparge water and keep it in a cooler that I use to feed a spinning sparge arm. It's probably hitting the top of the mash at around 190F.

I hope this helps.
 
Oh, hey, I was thinking of something else, too. Starters are really essential, and really easy to make, and they can be the key to having your beer finish completely instead of stopping a little early. In combination with that, you should oxygenate your wort. Sure, you can shake it or you can blow regular air through an airstone, but pure oxygen makes a lot more sense. From your posts, I gather that you don't like to mess around too much after the boil is over, so I can recommend two devices that you can connect directly inline from your boil pot to your fermenter, and everything will be done from flameout to finish in about ten minutes. First, the Therminator:

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products/ProdByID.aspx?ProdID=5789

then an inline oxygenator that also shows your (cooled) wort temperature:

http://morebeer.com/view_product/16619//Stainless_Inline_O2_System_-_Assembled

So your boiling wort will be able to leave the pot, and cool down to 70 degrees in the chiller, and then receive adequate oxygenation to get fermentaiton going beautifully. If you are serious about brewing, it will definitely be money well-spent.
 
Steve973 said:
Oh, hey, I was thinking of something else, too. Starters are really essential, and really easy to make, and they can be the key to having your beer finish completely instead of stopping a little early.
Click to expand...
I actually did my first starter this last Sunday. It came out great and the ber is fermenting really violently. I usually get fresh yeast though.
 
Fresh yeast is certainly good, because lag time will probably be produced, but with a starter, your goal is to produce a large number of yeast cells for pitching. You can figure out the number of cells that you ideally need with this calculator:

http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

That calculator is excellent! Most vials or starter packs contain about a hundred billion viable cells when it's really fresh. Of course, viable cells decline over time.

More good info on whether or not you need a starter:

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/starter-necessary-84567/#post903493
 
Steve973 said:
Fresh yeast is certainly good, because lag time will probably be produced, but with a starter, your goal is to produce a large number of yeast cells for pitching.
Click to expand...
By fresh yeast, I mean taken off the bottom of a fermenotr at a brewery, not the Wyeast Vials.
 
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