Advice appreciated!

[Nokando]

Hello brewers, thanks for having me on your forum.

I brewed up my first ever full-grain beer a few weeks back, but my FG hasn't ended up where I want it, and I'm looking for some advice.

It's a 20ltr batch of ESB, for which I used Maris Otter & British Crystal Malt, plus Challenger & EKG hops, plus 1 x protofloc tablet. On the brew day all went pretty well as planned. I achieved my target OG of 1060, aerated well and pitched Danstar London ESB yeast which was well in date.

I kept the fermenter at 18C. The brew went off like a rocket and bubbling stopped after around 3 days.

After 6 days the brew was cloudy & inactive, sitting at 1026. I decided to give it a careful stir, added 100g light spraymalt, and raised the temperature to 22C to try kick things off again.

Now here I am 14 days after brew day. The brew is cloudy with a froth surface but not pushing anything through the airlock, sitting with a gravity of 1020. My target FG was 1012-1016.

So what to do? Has it bombed? is it salvageable? Should I try to restart fermentation or just bottle it as is? What about the cloudiness?

Thanks in advance!

 

[beechwood]

what was your mash temp? if it was a high mash temp it will finish higher.

 

[Hoddy]

Remember that any predicted FG will be based on you hitting all the mash and boil temp/OG numbers etc throughout your process.

So any variance in those numbers (even 2 degrees in mashing can have a huge affect) will immediately show up in your fermentation and FG.


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[Leon103]

Any reason for adding spraymalt after 6 days? It was still fermenting. Patience is the key here. I would leave it another week. You added more sugar so the yeast has further work to do, might take longer than the typical 14 daya

 

[MyQul]

I just checked the thread on this yeast strain over on HBT and this yeast often doesnt seem to attenuate over about 65% especially if the receipe had (lots of) crystal malt in it. However your at 76% attenuation which is fine.

 

[Bodleigh Head]

Danstar ESB yeast only attenuates from around 60 to 65% ... sounds like you have hit your final gravity. My latest brew got down to 1018 ... which was what I was expecting.
For the cloudiness ... cold crashing and gelatine ... it'll take about three days to get it pretty clear.

 

[Nokando]

what was your mash temp? if it was a high mash temp it will finish higher.

Mash temp was 66C for 60 mins, Mash out 75C

 

[Nokando]

Any reason for adding spraymalt after 6 days? It was still fermenting. Patience is the key here. I would leave it another week. You added more sugar so the yeast has further work to do, might take longer than the typical 14 daya

I thought as there was no bubbling through the airlock that fermentation was stuck. Patience is good advice.

Thanks for the comments from others too.

 

[Leon103]

I thought as there was no bubbling through the airlock that fermentation was stuck. Patience is good advice.

Thanks for the comments from others too.

Air locks are temperamental at the best of times. Different yeasts act differently. Some are done and dusted in days others takes ages.

 

[Slid]

Hello brewers, thanks for having me on your forum.

I brewed up my first ever full-grain beer a few weeks back, but my FG hasn't ended up where I want it, and I'm looking for some advice.

It's a 20ltr batch of ESB, for which I used Maris Otter & British Crystal Malt, plus Challenger & EKG hops, plus 1 x protofloc tablet. On the brew day all went pretty well as planned. I achieved my target OG of 1060, aerated well and pitched Danstar London ESB yeast which was well in date.

I kept the fermenter at 18C. The brew went off like a rocket and bubbling stopped after around 3 days.

After 6 days the brew was cloudy & inactive, sitting at 1026. I decided to give it a careful stir, added 100g light spraymalt, and raised the temperature to 22C to try kick things off again.

Now here I am 14 days after brew day. The brew is cloudy with a froth surface but not pushing anything through the airlock, sitting with a gravity of 1020. My target FG was 1012-1016.

So what to do? Has it bombed? is it salvageable? Should I try to restart fermentation or just bottle it as is? What about the cloudiness?

Thanks in advance!

There are many posts on the forum about this yeast seeming to stall at around 1018 - which would be about 66% attenuation if the OG were say, 1054. This sounds entirely consistent with your 1060 down to 1020.

My own first ESB brew finished at the same 1018, but I added some of the "house yeast" I have been using for a while. This is US 05 and perhaps some Belgian yeast from a Brewferm kit. That got the FG down to 1010 or so,

It does all depend, though, on what you want the finished product to be like. I expect that the ESB strain is designed for a beer something like a 1960's Mild Ale, that is fairly low on alcohol and gets its taste from the non-converted sugars. This style seems not to be popular at the moment and if you were looking for 1012 -1016, there may be better yeasts for future reference?

My experience is very limited in tis respect, but the Gervin yeast that comes with Muntons kits, or can be bought readily and cheaply from Wilko, may be a marginally better bet?