Stalled, dead, fermenting or finished?

[BrewerBandit]

After nearly 10 years since my last brew I thought I’d dig out the equipment and get brewing. But I’m a bit puzzled and hope for some advice please.

It’s a bog standard Muntons IPA bitter, I used the bundled yeast and 1kg of Youngs enhancer. Initially the OG was 1.05. The instructions said it should be 1.04 so I watered it down to 1.04. I realise now that’s the difference between normal supermarket sugar and enhancer. The instructions also say FG should be 1.005.

3 days in and it’s at 1.01. Great! 5days in and it’s still at 1.01 and barely any bubbles. It seems like it’s finished but I’m spooked by the FG and speed. Is it normal to finish higher with enhancer?
Also, because of the hot weather I couldn’t get the temps lower than 24c, yesterday it crept up to 25c.

I always remember thinking 28c was the max you should ever brew at but everywhere seems to say 21c now!
Thanks for any help

 

[Sandimas]

Sounds like it's done to me, 1.010 seems to be the standard finishing gravity where most of my brews end up. I've rarely had any go below 1.010 and none have got near to 1.005, in over 200 brews, so I suspect those instructions are a bit optimistic. It will have fermented quickly because of the temperature, you may get off flavours with it fermenting that warm, many of us try to keep our brews at 18-21C, 28C feels way to high, I start getting worried at 24C.

 

[Consett26]

Youngs beer enhancer is a mixture of dried malt extract and sugar. The dried malt extract isn't as fermentable as sugar so, as you suspect, you'll end up with a higher finishing gravity than if you just used sugar. As a general rule of thumb, final gravity will be around a quarter of original gravity but it does vary dependent upon the mash temperature and the addition of fermentable adjuncts like sugar and honey.

The higher fermentation temperature will have speeded up the fermentation process but 3 - 5 days sounds about right to me. The only risk is that you'll have off flavours in the beer but you should be ok at 25 degrees, which, incidentally, is the temperature that Sharps ferment Doom Bar. That said I assume that they ferment under pressure to prevent off flavours.

The higher temperatures from the past are because there was bread yeast in the homebrew market and that needs a higher temperature to work. Nowadays we're spoiled with top quality brewers yeast of all kinds from around the world. In fact the range and quality of both ingredients and equipment has improved massively over the past decade or so

 

[BrewerBandit]

Thank you so much for your replies and I'm sorry to take so long to respond... first chance since I started the topic that I've had on front of the computer!

I was mistaken with the 1.005... the instructions said 1.008. I since found my old notes and so many of my brews started at around 1.05 and finished (like was suggested above) "around a quarter of original gravity". I wish I found them earlier, I would have seen it was all entirely normal.

I got it in the barrel on day 6 and it's now in the fridge clearing.

In the meantime I got a second brew on and typically the ambient temps went up even further. This one really will be testing the quality of the yeast because it hit 28c yesterday Winter is coming!

Thank you for the great replies