Stupid little thermometer ruin my brew?

[Toredan]

So I binned my little thermometer with probe. Basically I had a mini-brewday recently and this was the recipe;

Wort amount preboil 13L
Wort amount post boil 9L

3kg - Marris Otter
.250g Crystal

30g Citra 60m
10g Citra 15m
5g Citra 5m
65g Citra Flameout

All seemed good till I took a OG and got a reading of 1.078.That puts me at an efficiency of 91.56% using that recipe and those numbers. So alarm bells rang and after quickly boiling my kettle I find my stupid little thermometer to be about 12 degrees out. So instead of my mash being 65 degrees for an hour it turns out it was 77. Chucked in a pack of s-04 anyway and thought I'd see what happens. Fast forward a week and it's sitting at 1.040. Now I'm unsure what to do. The bucket has an inch of trub on the bottom and krausen around the top and it did take off like a rocket so I'm not sure if it's stuck or just full of loads of unfermentable sugars. What would you guys do in this situation? Lesson learned on the thermometer, went and bought a glass one on the way home from work today.

 

[ManseMasher]

Persevere with it is what I would do. Which thermometer was it? I have a few, and periodically I check them in a glass of iced water and then the steam from a boiling kettle. Whenever I get a new one that is the first thing I do. Even if they are way off (never had one 12° out mind!) at least I know where to go with them.

 

[MyQul]

I'd give it another week or two to see if it ferments out more. If not I'd dilute it to the FG that I wanted. Diluting it will of course dilute down the hops (both the flavour and IBU's) using a calculator

http://www.brewersfriend.com/dilution-and-boiloff-gravity-calculator/

So to get more IBU's in there I'd just take out 1L of wort boil it for an hour and add some more high Alpha Acid hops - tbh I've never done this so I'm not sure if boiling half fermented beer will have any effect flavour wise.

To get some more flavour in there I'd add some hop tea at bottling time

 

[Toredan]

Great, thanks guys. Will give it another week (if not 2) and see if I get any movement. If I bottled it at a FG of 1.040 would it actually carb up or would I just be ending up with flat beer? Guess my thought process is that if all the fermentable sugars are gone then it should still carb if i prime it? Will I be left with quite a sweet IPA or will I end up with a few potential bottle bombs?

As far as the thermometer goes I can't find a picture of the one I have but it looks almost exactly like the one linked here. (http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/New-Digit...932569?hash=item464925eb59:g:QjQAAOSwZG9WjzMf) Can't remember if Ebay links are allowed so will remove if need be.

 

[ManseMasher]

Ebay links are fine mate as long as they are not advertising stuff you are selling!

 

[MyQul]

It will condition without adding priming sugar but iirc it can take quite a bit of time to do so

 

[Toredan]

It will condition without adding priming sugar but iirc it can take quite a bit of time to do so

Sorry mate, meant carb not condition (post edited). Was on an early shift today so I'm only half awake :lol:

 

[MyQul]

Sorry mate, meant carb not condition (post edited). Was on an early shift today so I'm only half awake :lol:

oops, so did I

I've just done the calculations on diluting such a high gravity and an don't think it's going to be very practical. If you dilute it down to say 1.010 you need to add 27L of water! Lets hope it get's down some more as bottling a 'beer' at 1.040 will beer like bottling treacle. It'll barely be beer.

 

[Slid]

Since what you have is not really drinkable in its present state, maybe you could try adding some champagne style wine yeast? This used to be the de rigeur method for making Barley Wine in the 1960's and 70's.

Bad luck on the thermometer front. I used a glass one from Wiko for my first partial mash brews. They came out full bodied and slightly sweet, despite being mashed at the lower end of the scale - 65C or so. Then I calibrated it against a digital thermometer using boiling temperature and came to the conclusion that the glass one measured 4C too low at all temps.

 

[HebridesRob]

Give it a chance first. It might just work.

Since you're going to have to throw this away if you don't try something...

Cold crash your brew for a week or so to make the yeast dormant and make it sink. Rack beer off sediment and put it in a sterile container. Mash 1Kg of malt in 2-3L of water at 65c for 20 mins or so. Bring your beer up to 65c and add it to the mash with the now active enzymes. Hold at 65c for an hour or so. Raise temp to 80c or so to kill off the enzymes. Strain, then re-pitch yeast (I guess you could use some of the sediment here).

I have no idea if the above will work but what's to lose?

 

[TheRedDarren]

Give it a chance first. It might just work.

Since you're going to have to throw this away if you don't try something...

Cold crash your brew for a week or so to make the yeast dormant and make it sink. Rack beer off sediment and put it in a sterile container. Mash 1Kg of malt in 2-3L of water at 65c for 20 mins or so. Bring your beer up to 65c and add it to the mash with the now active enzymes. Hold at 65c for an hour or so. Raise temp to 80c or so to kill off the enzymes. Strain, then re-pitch yeast (I guess you could use some of the sediment here).

I have no idea if the above will work but what's to lose?

In theory that's a bloody good shout. I'd try this if I was in this position.
Failing that, you can buy enzymes in liquid form from some hb suppliers...

 

[HebridesRob]

In theory that's a bloody good shout. I'd try this if I was in this position.
Failing that, you can buy enzymes in liquid form from some hb suppliers...

Aye! We've been through that one too, seems beta amylase is hard to get hold of...
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=60371

 

[geigercntr]

Stumbled across this post from way back in 1995 (http://hbd.org/brewery/library/enzymes595.html) that suggests getting yr mitts on some enzymes and wanging them in. Could be worth a punt?

Oops: basically read the 2 posts above...