1st BIAB in the Bucket - Questions

I agree, if the SG is 1.030, and the TFG is much lower, if you bottle it you will get bottle bombs. Ask me how I know.
The good news is it’s not infected…your SG would be about 0.999 if it was…
I give up, time to pitch a big starter of some bad ass yeast.

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Not a fan of bleach… It seems to stick to the container… But then maybe that wasn’t the culprit… killing humble little yeast cells… Sneezles61

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You didn’t need to make a starter. I don’t think you looked at my link. People where hot head comes from harvest by putting a wooden necklace in the fermenter and leaving it out to dry. They ferment in a few days with a yeast ring innoculation.

Your wife did not say it tasted “sweet” at 1.03 I would imagine she would say that before bitter.

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@squeegeethree I read the link. I can’t explain why the yeast stopped, but Omega does recommend a starter when your gravity is above 50 (or if its more than 90 days old). As you are aware the starter would have produced more cells and that should have kept things going (my opinion). I’m pretty convinced had I used a starter things would have been different.

@sneezles61 I’m not a fan of bleach, but I wanted to go back and clean and sanitize things very well after racking to the carboy. I went back after that with Easy Clean and let it soak for a while then rinsed and rinsed again. I plan to clean and sanitize (again) with Easy Clean and Star San once I get ready for my next batch. I’m just trying to eliminate anything and everything that I could have done wrong.

I guess I could pitch another thing of yeast, but at this point I’m ready to chalk this up as a very good lesson and move on. Nothing wrong with failure. That’s how we learn.

A lesson is when you learn something what have you learned by giving up. You have a stuck fermenation probably because you underpitced and under aerated. It’s not infected and you didn’t kill your yeast. Spend $4 bucks on some yeast and rack it at a minimum. Or at least bottle a twelve pack and get a gallon jug and transfer a gallon and let it go and keep an eye on it. Dump it and you’ve learned nothing. You don’t even know what it tastes like. Not sure why you think brewing a kit would change anything.

Here’s a great description of what I believe contributed to my problem. It’s not ‘stuck’. It’s finished…

“But what most new brewers think is a stuck fermentation is usually a matter of the yeast eating all the fermentables and finishing high, like what we call the 1.020 or 1.030 curse. If you mashed too high and got a lot of unfermentables, or in the case of extract, a lot of unfermentables/caramelization. Nothing you can do short of maybe adding an alpha amalaze to “break” the unfermentable sugars down will work.

Swirling won’t, warming it up won’t, heck even adding more yeast won’t. A beer can be done high, and nothing’s really wrong.”

The post also goes on to say, “That dark translates into unfermentable sugars.”. My take away here is that dark (what I described earlier as chocolate milk) I see is unfermentable sugars.

I also have to agree with the section “Rescuing a Stressed Fermentation” in this article…

http://beerandwinejournal.com/stuck-ferment-2/

So… I’m in the 1.030 curse. I’ll take that knowledge and move on.

Thanks for all of the help.

Me started reusing my yeast. When i started doing this lots of reseach on collecting washing. Pff lots of work. Now the simple way. Like voodoo says. Collect bit. Just put in mason jar. Day before brewing. Make a starter and pitch the yeast again. Seems to work.

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I would agree with your assessments for this brew. Looking back through posts you did mash in the 155-160 degree range. The yeast got all that it could get.

Good lesson learned. Move on to the next brew.

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One more thing I could think of. Is it possible there wasn’t complete conversion? Almost no one still does it but I do only because it is so simple and that is do an iodine test. Simply pull a tablespoon of the clear (clearest you can get) liquid wort from the mash and place it on a white plate, let it cool a little and drip a drop of iodine from the drug store in the liquid. If it stays brown it’s sugar, if it turns black it’s still starch. Any hulls it comes in contact will turn black.

Honestly I have not had one that did not convert in so long I don’t remember when. Today’s malt are so modified there should never be that problem if everything even went close to correct. Until my little bottle of iodine runs out, I will keep using it anyway.

So you found an article that supports what you want to believe its easy enough to prove. Anyway if you think it’s done go ahead and bottle it. Like I said you’ve learned nothing

@hd4mark Thanks and I looked up some info on the starch conversion and iodine tests. Looking back, my mash temps may have run a little high 155-160F per my notes. I think this might be a good test to run on my next batch. This would give me some understanding of when the conversion reaches the max and how long I should mash in.

The article I read recommends testing 45 minutes into the mash. If it turns black, continue to allow the conversion and testing at about 10-15 minute intervals until it turns a reddish brown. This would confirm the conversion of the starches to sugars. Great test!

Thanks!!

EDIT: Another note that leads me to believe I may have a conversion issues is the mill setting. The local shop mill setting was .070 (their recommendation for BIAB). As some pointed out this may have been to course of a setting which would have impacted the conversion. All good stuff.

The course mill setting will affect conversion but you got conversion I believe because of your gravity reading. If you had a bad crush you would have gotten a low OG. By the way there is no such thing as a .030 curse, there has to be a reason. This is a group forum so once you post a question it becomes a group discussion and group problem. We are beer nerds and this is how we get our kicks. It’s not about your beer anymore. So if you want to learn something do this. Bottle some without adding anything and bottle a few with sugar cubes. You want to at least know what it tastes like. Then top up with some DME wort and a pack of us-05.

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I agree with @brew_cat bottle a couple to see what happens. Either use plastic bottles or keep the glass ones in a container that is sealed just in case.

Milling wise I see a shiny new mill in your future.

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That sounds reasonable Brew Cat… a three way test… Trying to confirm just what is/did happen…
Hopefully Mr. O has another fermenter to get the next batch going whilst awaiting results from the previous? Perhaps? Sneezles61

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Till now i never had any issues with my grains. Do the iodine test. Nice way to see if your grains did do something

It’s possible the beer is “done” because of the high mash temp and creation of highly unfermentable wort but I’d still be cautious about bottling as others have mentioned. I’d also want to prove my theory by pitching a high krausen starter as I recommended much earlier in the thread.

I have to agree with @brew_cat that you have theories about what went wrong but really have no hard and true facts atm. Bottling as safely as possible would give you more data as would pitching as described above.

I don’t think your cleaning/sanitation plays any role here because it doesn’t sound like you have an infection.

A mill set at .070 would yield a lot of uncrushed grain just falling through, so honestly I don’t think they know what their mill is set at. A poor crush would also give you poor conversion as described above.

Perhaps this thread has been beaten to death now… Maybe a good time to move onto number 2 brew… Sneezles61

Maybe ask his LHBS to set the crush a little tighter.

This reminds me of when I first got my refractometer and was always stuck at 1.02 FG or higher :grin:

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That’s a good point. Wondering if hydrometer is mis calibrated. Makes sense because of the fat crush maybe the OG was actually low but just read higher and the FG is reading higher than it actually is as well.

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