Whats gone wrong?

[1867_owl]

Hi folks,

This is an appeal for help from your shared knowledge and wisdom.

I am about a week into a homebrew of Coopers IPA.

In the mix are 500 grams of light dry malt alongside 300 of dextrose as per the instructions on the tin.. I have a cold room so have used a heating belt to raise the temperature above about 18 degrees..

Anyway, the things is that bubbles have only passed through the airlock for about two half days.. Can this be it already? With the belt on the temperature reached a worryingly high 28 degrees at which time i loosened it off to reduce the temperature. I have now been averaging around 24 degrees for the last few days and there seems to have been no fermentation..

According to my hydrometer readings my beer has gone from 0.032 to 0.008 but to be honest, I dont really know what this means..

So what should I do? Just bottle it and see what happens? Did the temperature get too high and kill the yeast? Should I add more sugar.

Anyways, as im sure you can tell, im a bit new at all this so any help and advice would be great..

Thanks in advance people.

 

[1867_owl]

Is there any way of knowing if there is any sugar left?? I was thinking about just adding another sachet of yeast and seeing if it starts bubbling through the air lock again.

 

[Hopping_Mad]

Those temperatures were very high - both with brew belt (28c) and after (24c - probably the absolute max for the yeast).

Your yeast may well have eaten all the fermentable sugars already (hence your gravity reading of 1008 already), but it's the type of alcohol that it will have produced at those temps that might be the issue.

Coopers usually give you a temperature range in their instructions. You should try to get to the middle of it, and stay there! A timer switch with your brew belt should help. I've had heat pad on 15 mins every hour the central heating is not on for the last two brews. That has kept it around the 20c mark.

Bottle it and see how it goes. It may not be ideal, but drinkable?

 

[1867_owl]

Cheers for that Hopping_Mad.

The instructions recommend 21-27 so i thought that at only 28, i would have gotten away with it.. Given my gravity reading do you think that all the sugar has been fermented away? I really was only bubbling through the air lock for a few hours. If not, is there any harm in adding another sachet and keeping a closer eye on the temperature?

Thanks for the great idea of putting the belt on a timer.

 

[nixhaz]

Bubbling in the airlock is not always an indicator of fermentation. You can have a tiny leak and get no bubbling at all. The gold standard is your gravity. If your temperature corrected gravity is 1.008 then it has probably finished fermentation (most hydrometers are calibrated to 20C).

28 is a really high temp for beer, it's why lots of people don't brew in the summer! I hope that you don't get too many off flavours from the high ferment temp!

 

[1867_owl]

Right, Ill take another gravity reading at 20 degrees or adjust for temperature to make sure that the sugar has gone. And then get it bottled!! Thanks for the help folks

 

[1867_owl]

Ok, I just gave it a stir and there wasnt the inch or two of sediment on the bottom. Infact, there was hardly anything on the bottom so ive added a sachet of yeast and we will see where it goes from here..

PS, i know that the fermentor is air-tight given that it has bubbled through the air lock in the past

 

[Hopping_Mad]

Don't forget, you're new yeast might be a different strain to the kit yeast! It might have a different target temperature range.

That was quit a high temp range for that Coopers yeast! Can't remember having that yeast myself, but only done two Coopers kits, and neither were IPA!