Beer kit stuck on 1.018, was it my process?

[Berry454]

Do mostly AG lately but had one of these Geordie Bitter beer kits lying around so decided to brew this kit up with a mini mash.

I done a mini mash which was 2kg pale ale malt mashed at 68 degrees Celsius for 60 minutes.

Drained straight into the fermenter after sparging and added the extract beer kit tin to the fermenter.

Fermented down to 1.020 in 3 days and left it for a full 7 days at 20 degrees Celsius.

After 7 days it was still on 1.020 with no sign of activity so I raised the temperature to 24 degrees Celsius and gave it a good stir.

Nothing after 3 days still on 1.020.

Added a sachet of Safale S-04 yeast and left it for another week at 24 degrees Celsius.

It’s now on 1.018 and absolutely no signs of further activity.

Did my process cause this? Was this something to do with their already being unfermentables in the Geordies kit which only added more from my mash? Maybe it’s best just using plain old dextrose with these kits?

Would really be great to know if the mash process which I done with the 2kg of pale ale malt could have contributed to this? Just as I have a further 4 Coopers kits which I would like to brew up using the same method.

 

[RichardM]

How much water in the mash?
What was the volume in the fermenter?
How much yeast did you pitch?
What was the O.G?

The O.G. could have been to high for the yeast.

 

[Berry454]

How much water in the mash?
What was the volume in the fermenter?
How much yeast did you pitch?
What was the O.G?

The O.G. could have been to high for the yeast.

Thanks for your response..

I done the mash with 10 litres of water. I usually do 20 litres for a full AG brew but as this was less than half the amount of grain 10 litres felt right.

Mash volume: 10 litres
Mash temp 68c
FV (fermenter volume) 19 litres
SG 1.048
FG 1.018 (currently)

I pitched the normal sachet of yeast that came with the Geordie bitter beer kit. Can’t say what yeast this was as it isn’t branded on the packet. Though at 1.048 SG even if it fermented down to 1.010 (my goal gravity) it would have only topped out at 4.99% which should totally be within the tolerance for most yeasts.

Plus if it was a yeast tolerance issue I imagine it would have started back up with the Safale S-04 which I pitched to try and restart fermentation as this is tolerant up to 9%+.

Sadly after pitching the Safale S-04 it only gone from 1.020 to 1.018.

As said would be really good to know if any process in my mash could have caused this as I was planning to do my other left over beer kits using the same method.

I know 68c is on the high side for mashing but I have stuck to this temperature for a long time. 10+ AG brews with everything from lagers to red ales and never had an issue.

 

[RichardM]

Well 68c is quite a high mash temp which will give you more unfermentable sugars, but I wouldn't have expected it to stop fermentation that high.

 

[Berry454]

Well 68c is quite a high mash temp which will give you more unfermentable sugars, but I wouldn't have expected it to stop fermentation that high.

Yeah it’s a strange one isn’t it and honestly not an issue that I have ever had with beer brewing. Part of me is wondering if this possibly an issue with the kit.

This is my first bitter beer brew, how bad is 1.018 for an English bitter? Not sure if to toss the whole thing really. Don’t have a lot of keg space free (10/12 corny kegs are currently full) so don’t really have the space to be keeping anything which isn’t worth it.

 

[jof]

Well looks like you're just going to have to do a taste test to see if it's too sweet

 

[Berry454]

Well looks like you're just going to have to do a taste test to see if it's too sweet

The sugars that are left over, considering they aren’t fermentable what exactly are these? Dextrine maybe? Though I would imagine dextrine would be fermentable!

It does concern me slightly that every litre at 1.018 contains over 50g of sugar compared to less than 24g / litre at 1.010.

As said would just be nice to know what I am consuming!

 

[RichardM]

Unless it is so sweet you can't drink it I can't see any reason to dump it.

 

[fluketamer]

did you measure gravity with hydrometer or refractometer.

 

[Clint]

You could mix it up and chuck a SAISON yeast at it.

 

[Jahfish]

did you measure gravity with hydrometer or refractometer.

I was going to ask if the hydrometer was OK too

 

[Graz]

Plus if it was a yeast tolerance issue I imagine it would have started back up with the Safale S-04 which I pitched to try and restart fermentation as this is tolerant up to 9%+.

Sadly after pitching the Safale S-04 it only gone from 1.020 to 1.018.

What I've learnt over the years is that you can't really restart a stuck fermentation just by pitching more yeast in it.

From what I understand now that it is partially brewed and has a level of alcohol in it then it's not a good environment for fresh yeast to thrive in. The yeast that you used from the outset will become tolerant to the alcohol as it ferments and will usually continue to do so until it has consumed all the fermentables or occasionally in strong beers the alcohol becomes so much that it is more than the yeast can tolerate and it stops.

To restart a fermentation you need to make a starter to build up the yeast and get it used to an alcohol rich environment, typically make up a litre or so of wort with some malt extract and pitch your yeast there, once its going strong you can then add that to the stuck brew and it may restart it.

I had the odd stuck ferment over the years and I've put it down to one of a few things, either pitched to hot or cold, or not enough yeast in the first place (Munton's Woodforde's Kits particularly when they only came with a 5g yeast sachet), you need at least 10g in 5 gallons for a all malt kit. I'm now also much more careful in checking and adjusting the temperature before pitching, when topping up the fermenter check it at about 20L, too cold - add a bit more hot water from the kettle, too hot - keep adding cold.

 

[The Baron]

I am with Graz it is very difficult to re-start stuck fermentations to get it low enough.
Two options taste it and see if it is not too sweet and drink as is or get some AMG or Amyloglucosidase and brew another standard batch maybe and blend to bring down the sweetness you can do this without the amg but using amg with bring the FG right down to compensate for the high FG on the first batch but a standard batch may finish low enough to compensate the sweetness.

 

[Bitter_Dave]

The kind of yeast you get with a Geordie kit isn't really designed to ferment out a full malt beer with the quantity of yeast provided. It will be Muntons Active yeast in a 6gm pack, designed for a beer kit plus 1kg of sugar (which is easy to ferment). I'm not sure if they even mention this on the label as they assume that if you buy a Geordie kit you are going to be using a load of sugar. If you used two packets, or substituted the Muntons Active for Muntons Gold yeast, it would have been fine. Except you can't buy either of these yeasts separately now which isn't very helpful! So in future I recommend using a decent yeast like S04 or equivalent. (Mashing at 68 isn't going to have this kind of impact).

That said, I would taste it. If it tastes nice, no problem. It's not going to budge any further without assistance. If you don't like it you can go down the starter route. As others have said, chucking more dry yeast in at this stage ain't going to help.

 

[Bitter_Dave]

Another option if it tastes too sweet is to add some isomerised hop extract to increase the bitterness and balance out the sweetness. But I would try it - you may be surprised that it is not as sweet as you expect; you may even like it as a full bodied beer!