About 12 days ago I made my first extract brew following the Scottish 80 recipe.
My OG was slightly higher at 1050. I chucked the hydrometer in this morning and its showing 1020/1022 which I thought was a bit high. I gave the bucket a gentle rotation on it’s bottom edge to see if it would rouse the yeast but after 9 hours it’s still around the 1020 mark. I admit to using slightly more liquid malt than the recipe listed (2 x 1.5kg as opposed to 2 x 1.42kg) so could it be the single packet of dry yeast couldn’t handle the extra sugars?
Not really wanting to bottle with the gravity so high but I suppose if it’s done, it’s done!
What was your entire recipe? How many grams of yeast did you pitch? Did you rehydrate the yeast? What temperature was the wort during fermentation?
Properly pitched 11 grams of rehydrated yeast would have had no problems with the fermentation. Time may be the only problem.
Twelve days would be a short fermentation. Check the SG in another five days. Temperature correct the SG.
I had a batch of caribou slobber stall out about there that got too cold on me. I did what I could to try and get it lower then bottled it anyways. Not thinking about it, fortunately I’m impatient and I checked a bottlenafter two days. If I hadn’t I would have had some serious bottle bombs on my hands. All that sugar restarted fermentation with the pricing sugar and tooknoff in the bottles
That would create less air than you think? What is aerating pretty well? Shake vigorously for 2 minutes or use an aerator stone for 5 minutes or more would do the job.
I’ve never had an issue dropping the cold water into the wort from shoulder height but have on the odd occasion used a sanitised plasterers paddle and attached it to my cordless drill… works wonders but takes ages for the foam to subside!
[quote=“Caddarn”]About 12 days ago I made my first extract brew following the Scottish 80 recipe.
My OG was slightly higher at 1050. I chucked the hydrometer in this morning and its showing 1020/1022 which I thought was a bit high. I gave the bucket a gentle rotation on it’s bottom edge to see if it would rouse the yeast but after 9 hours it’s still around the 1020 mark. I admit to using slightly more liquid malt than the recipe listed (2 x 1.5kg as opposed to 2 x 1.42kg) so could it be the single packet of dry yeast couldn’t handle the extra sugars?
Not really wanting to bottle with the gravity so high but I suppose if it’s done, it’s done![/quote]
Been reading some comments about Windsor yeast. It is a low attenuating yeast for a beer that will finish with a sweeter taste. Your beer is probably close to being done. Give it more time though. Dropping the last few points can take some time. Warming the fermentor a few degrees may help.
I should have mentioned this the other day… I gave the bucket another shoogle and fermentation kicked off again. Measurement this morning had it down to 1010… really glad I didn’t bottle last week!
I had a batch of caribou slobber stall out about there that got too cold on me. I did what I could to try and get it lower then bottled it anyways. Not thinking about it, fortunately I’m impatient and I checked a bottlenafter two days. If I hadn’t I would have had some serious bottle bombs on my hands. All that sugar restarted fermentation with the pricing sugar and tooknoff in the bottles
I think if it happens again I will repitch[/quote] dry yeast does not need to or benifit in any way from aeration.
Are you spinning the hydrometer to get the air bubbles pff? Are you making sure to read at the water line rather then the bend in the water from displacement? How are you taking your sample?
