Anyone bottled at 1020?

[degsie73]

Have had a john bull london porter in the fv for 9 days and for the last three
days I have had constant 1020 reading on the hydrometer. Stirred the yeast gently
two days ago - but (although still occasional bubbles in airlock) no change to
readings!
Do I need to take any drastic measures or should I just go ahead and bottle
(used a safale 04 yeast instead of the kit one by the way!) Is it worth chucking in
the kit yeast as well - or would this mean having to wait another week or worse
exploding bottles in the night?
Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[BigYin]

I have bottled 3 brews at around that final gravity.

All worked out absolutely fine, no bottle bombs, no sweet beer, all fine!!

If it's really not moving, then bottle it, be conservative on the priming sugars, and you will hopefully be pleasantly surprised by the results :thumb:

As an aside, what was the starting gravity?

 

[snail59]

Not familiar with the kit but it will depend a lot on what the recommended FG should be. If the kit Say's it should get down to 1018/16 then it should not be a problem but if it should go down to 1008/6 then there is still a lot of sugar in there and could pose a problem. If that is the case just use a little less priming sugar to compensate. You could try giving it a little gentle stir and up the temp it is fermenting at to rouse the yeasties as the ambient temp has dropped in resent days it could have just gone to sleep.

 

[degsie73]

OG was 1050 and according to the kit instructions it says to
bottle when the reading is under 1008 for two consecutive days!!!!!
Have given it another stir and the spare room is a constant 20 degrees
day and night, think I will give it a couple more days to settle out now
and then go ahead and bottle. Thanks for the advice chaps!

 

[luckyeddie]

With a discrepancy of 10 points between expected and actual SG, I'd be inclined to give it a few days yet.

 

[Merry]

I'd try a teaspoon of yeast nutrient and a stir and leave another 7 days.

 

[happyhoppytaff]

it must be the hardest part of homebrewing-leaving it a few more days when all you want to do is get it bottled.

1.020 is high. in the winter i was bottling at .012 often which i thought was a bit high. didnt have a problem though.

leave it another two days and check again. if its still 20 then you might as well bottle it. use 2ltr pets and stick them out side so if they do explode you wont scare the wife or kids.

 

[Rich85]

I've got a similar thing happening with a St Peter's Ruby Red. I started it on the 8th and by the 12th it had got down to 1020. I checked it again over the next couple of days and it hadn't moved so I put in some yeast nutrient and gave it a stir and left it till today.

I never thought to check the temperature or use a heater because I have got it well insulated and assumed that the warm weather would be enough. It is still reading at 1020 so I checked the temperature and it turns out it is too cold at 15 degrees so I have put an aquarium heater in set to 22 degrees to warm it up a bit. Hopefully tomorrow the yeasties will have sprung back to life and be getting on with their job! I recommend that you check the temperature like snail59 said, it could be that it is too cold like mine was.

I kegged a Muntons Smugglers and a Milestone Black Pearl Stout a few months ago both at 1020 because I couldn't get them to drop any further and although they were drinkable, they were both slightly too sweet tasting. I left them for about 10 weeks and they did get better, especially the Smugglers so I wouldn't be overly worried.

Good luck with yours mate.

 

[Rich85]

Just to let you know, I just checked it now and it has dropped from 1020 to 1016 in just over 18 hours. Almost certainly must have been the temperature, the FV is now at a steady 22 degrees rather than the chilly 15 degrees it was yesterday thanks to the heater.

I think I'll use the heater on all my brews in future even if the sun is cracking the flags as it seems like low and inconsistent temperatures have been the main reason for the stuck fermentations I have been getting judging from my last brew turning out well with the heater and now this one starting to drop again after I put the heater in. I keep my FV in the living room where it is consistently warm and I have got it well insulated but it seems that it isn't enough to keep the temperature high enough alone.

How are you getting on with your brew Degsie?

 

[Aleman]

I've bottled several beers at higher than 1.020 . . . although the weakest of them started at 1.096 . . . some of them failed to develop any condition even after 12 years in the bottle.


Although for normal beers you want to try and avoid that . . . give it a week (Usually 3 days) with no change in gravity and then bottle

 

[degsie73]

Cheers all, I gave it another stir and sat the fv in a large plastic trough of water with an aquarium
heater in, set this to 22 degrees and left it for another 3 days it dropped to about 1018 eventually
Have since bottled and left it in spare room for nearly a week now - yet to be awakened by any
bangs in the night!! Tried a little sip whilst bottling and it tastes pretty good so far!

Another thought - I did add extra sray malt, chocolate malt and black treacle to this kit and was wondering
if you can add too much fermentables (over tinkering is that possible?) Anyone else got any advice or
experience of this?

 

[degsie73]

Just a quick update on the brew - took a good 4 weeks in the bottle before it tasted right!
But blow me it tastes bloody good now and getting better all the time - plenty of carbonation
and possibly closer to a stout than a porter - but great coffee/ treacle flavours coming through
and pretty impressed with the final result (one of the best yet)

Cheers all !