too much sugar not enough Alcohol

[thequiff]

I'm hoping someone can help. I'm very new to this and tried adding 2kg of sugar molasses and then fermenting. It did quite well but seams to be stuck at 11.5% and there is a lot of sugar left. I used Young's super yeast compound with Young's yeast nutrient. Any Suggestions on how to get more alcohol from the yeast? Maybe one of the super yeasts?

Matt

 

[State of the mind]

Well, it is more than likely the yeast that is stopping the fermentation. However it could be a lack of nutrients. Try adding more yeast nutrient, just to be sure. If there is still a stuck fermentation, it will more than likely that the level of alcohol present is too much for the yeast to cope with. The only thing I can recommend is that you order another yeast that can ferment to higher levels of alcohol. Such as this strain http://www.hopandgrape.co.uk/catalog/de ... UR20241681 (it ferments up to 20.5%)

Hope this helped. :grin:

 

[Moley]

What's the brew, what's the volume and do you have a hydrometer?

Young's yeast compound plus nutrients should certainly be good for 18-19% abv.

 

[thequiff]

I used 2kg Natural Mollasses
19th April Reading was 1130
7 May 1048
making it about 11.2%

What am I making? Alcohol, not really sure experimenting with the flavour from the mollases added 2tsps of nutrient to the mix to see if more would help. No joy.

 

[Moley]

To be honest I didn't really know quite what molasses were, and have never used them, so I looked them up on Wiki.

So you used 2kg and made up to what volume?
Did you start that on 19th April and was that 1.130 your Original Gravity?
Any other ingredients, or just sugar, yeast and nutrient?

You could probably try restarting it as I described here, but get some acid in there too, either a couple of tsps of Citric or the juice of two lemons.

 

[thequiff]

The mollases that I got are basically strong raw cane sugar.Sorry 2kg of Sugar to make up 1 gallon. Then added teaspoon of nutrients and teaspoon of Young' super yeast compound. When its stopped, i thought i'd add more yeast 1 teaspoon and 2 teaspoons of nutrients, with no effect.

 

[Moley]

I still feel like I'm missing something somewhere, 2kg of sugar in 4.5 litres would give an OG around 1.165, which is just plain ridiculous, and if you've already got 16% alcohol you aren't going to re-start that unless you split it between two jars and water it down, and then it will need nursing back to life like I linked to above.

 

[thequiff]

Not sure maybe I am calculating it wrong but with the gravity readings I made it 11.2%. It still taste sweet so I am assuming there is still sugar left?
Certainly going to give your method a go.

 

[snail59]

There could easy be sugar left as the Yeast your useing may not be a high alcohol strain and it could be that the yeast cant cope with the volume of alcohol it is currently in.