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Belgian Tripel FG?

Yeast & Fermentation
#1

My Belgian Tripel has been sitting in the secondary for about two weeks. Originally it started to show very distinct layers of color with the top layer clearing nicely. Now however it seems the haze from the bottom has come back up, although overall I can tell a lot of yeast has settled out.

I just took a gravity reading this morning and it appears to be stuck at 1.030. Do I need to add a little more yeast to get it down a little further? If so, could I then use a little of the same yeast on bottling day with the priming sugar?

Thanks.

#2

Have you calibrated your hydrometer? If it really is stuck that high then your best bet is to pitch an active starter and keep it as warm as possible, in the high 70s if you can.

It’s never a good idea to rack a beer out of the fermenter before it reaches the expected FG.

#3

All grain or extract? Recipe?

#4

I did check it before taking this reading and it is pretty accurate. However I didn’t adjust for ambient temperature which is 65 degrees in the basement.

Will it hurt to pitch a little more yeast even if it’s close to finishing? Given another week in the secondary wouldn’t the extra settle out?

#5

It is an extract kit with 9.6 lbs LME and DME and 1 lb candi sugar. Recipe says it should hit FG of about 1.020

#6

The problem is that it isn’t close to finished at that SG. If you try to bottle you’ll either have flat beer (because there’s no active yeast left) or exploding bottles (because there’s so much residual sugar left).

If you’re kegging then you could go ahead and just transfer it now, but at 1.030 I can’t imagine it would taste very good.

#7

So I spoke with my local brew shop and they suggested using champagne yeast to restart the process. They said due to the fact that there is already alcohol in the liquid the normal yeast would have trouble starting, but the champagne yeast should be fine and not alter the flavor of the original yeast.

I pitched about 3/4 of the packet last night and although I don’t have aggressive bubbling I can see the haze clearing back to what the original layers looked like, (like it will be a clear deep gold) so we’ll see.

#8

That’s a bad idea. When you dump dry yeast, no matter what kind of yeast it is, into a solution that already contains alcohol, most of the yeast will be killed outright, and many of the rest will remain dormant. To restart fermentation your best bet is to pitch an active starter at high krausen.

#9

That’s a bad idea. When you dump dry yeast, no matter what kind of yeast it is, into a solution that already contains alcohol, most of the yeast will be killed outright, and many of the rest will remain dormant. To restart fermentation your best bet is to pitch an active starter at high krausen.[/quote]

Let me emphasize that’s a REALLY bad idea!

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