I don't think liquid yeast likes me

[Frog 1]

Okay so brew #4 a mocca stout, all grain with chocolate and cafe grain included in the recipe, lots of posh 85% chocolate in it and a good 1/4 litre of colombian arabica fresh ground espresso, during fermentation it tastes really good..... but..... yet again I have what appears to be a stuck fermentation. Using white labs 001 which on the recipe in brewers friend looked to be enough, no starter needed. I have to admit it was in the fridge following delivery for around a week, but once it was in, fermentation started after a day, bubbling away happily, around 3 days later, slowed right down, after 7 days it had reached its current gravity of 1.026. OG was 1.056 see screenshot below. I had it on a warming tray which kept it nicely around 20 to 22 degrees, but I have to admit one day it got a little hot at 28 degrees, but that was at around day 11, so the gravity had slowed to a stop by then anyway. I don't particularly want to add more yeast this time and I am planning to keg this batch and use 70/30 nitro/Co2, it still tastes good if not a bit young, but wondering if I should go ahead and keg it soon. I gave it a good shake up yesterday but no change.

I'm planing to stop using liquid yeast, I don't have much luck with it. Any comments would be gratefully accepted to learn from.

 

[MyQul]

ALWAYS make a starter with a liquid yeast pouch. They say 'no starter needed' on them but you have to remember that's for the American market who can get the yeast in a couple of days fresh from the lab. They have to make they're way over here for us and who knows how they've been handled and how long it has taken t get here

 

[An Ankoù]

ALWAYS make a starter with a liquid yeast pouch. They say 'no starter needed' on them but you have to remember that's for the American market who can get the yeast in a couple of days fresh from the lab. They have to make they're way over here for us and who knows how they've been handled and how long it has taken t get here

..... and their 5 gallon batch is 19 litres whereas ours is 23.

 

[MyQul]

..... and their 5 gallon batch is 19 litres whereas our is 23.

Oh, yes. That too

 

[Frog 1]

Okay so are we saying that fermentation has stopped and whilst not what I expected, I should be good to go, tastes good, ABV working out to 3.94% which is less than I was aiming for but not hugely so, and makes for a longer night with passing out o'clock being much later!!!

If so, I can live with that, I can tell the missus I'm on almost alcohol free.

 

[Frog 1]

Good shouts on the starter by the way. Cheers.

 

[MyQul]

Okay so are we saying that fermentation has stopped and whilst not what I expected, I should be good to go, tastes good, ABV working out to 3.94% which is less than I was aiming for but not hugely so, and makes for a longer night with passing out o'clock being much later!!!

If so, I can live with that, I can tell the missus I'm on almost alcohol free.

Looks like it's stopped. It can be hard to get a fermentation going again (as attested by all the 'help my brew is stuck' threads we get). Just go ahead and keg it. It's good you're kegging because you wont get bottle bombs and you can just vent any excess C02 if it does kick off again in the keg

 

[Frog 1]

Looks like it's stopped. It can be hard to get a fermentation going again (as attested by all the 'help my brew is stuck' threads we get). Just go ahead and keg it. It's good you're kegging because you wont get bottle bombs and you can just vent any excess C02 if it does kick off again in the keg

Sounds good, I will have a few bottles but they are the swing top type so hopefully wont explode, but I'll put those somewhere safe.

 

[strange-steve]

Just to add to the above, I personally only use liquid yeast if I can't find a good equivalent dry yeast. So for something like wlp001 I would always use US-05 instead, I imagine the difference between the two would be tiny. Dry yeast is just easier.

 

[Frog 1]

Just to add to the above, I personally only use liquid yeast if I can't find a good equivalent dry yeast. So for something like wlp001 I would always use US-05 instead, I imagine the difference between the two would be tiny. Dry yeast is just easier.