1017 Too High?

[Koikaze]

Sorry another thread like this... but ive read a few topics and i just want advise for my case. I have a fg of about 1016-1017... should i bottle? it has been constant for 3 days. Ive given it a little shake, and the temp has been 17-19c. I used a muntons yourkshire bittle 1kg honey and 500g of Light DME. I dont know how much the honey ferments out.

 

[yardy]

try and warm it up a bit if you can, dunno what yeast you have but 17 is a bit cool.

 

[Adamt]

Honey should ferment very dry. However many honeys contains stuff that is not brilliant for yeast. What honey did you use?

 

[Kleiny]

18 degrees is good
if its held at 1017 for 3 days at 18 degrees
bottle it

 

[boingk]

I'd be tempted to rack it - I generally do this anyway, but find its good for getting a few stubborn SG points down. Also perhaps warm it a tad to 19-20'C.

Cheers - boingk

 

[mfdes]

Sorry to give conflicting advice but I would not rack.
Instead I would go by pointers such as whether the wort is darkening signifincatly, a sure sign that fermentation is no longer terribly active. Racking does little, in my experience, to improve your beer, so unless you need to do it for a particular reason (to free up a fermenter for example), I would not do it.
Instead let the beer sit on the yeast for a few days or up to a week after fermentation in probably over, which will significantly improve the flavour.

It is OK to let the temperature rise towards the end of fermentation and this helps dry out the beer. At this stage you will not produce undesirable esters or fusel alcohols.

MFS.

 

[Tony]

to my understanding........ most micro and comercial breweries rack the beer off the primary yeast as soon as firmentation slows to improve the beer flavours.

I have always believed, read and been told by reputable (some comercial) brewers that you should not leave the beer on the primary yeast cake for too long as it has negative effects on flavour.

Perhaps im wrong but will be glad to hear solid information that says leavng the beer on the primary yeast improves flavour.

I always rack to secondary when the firmentation has slowed. This rouses the yeast...... introduces a bit more oxygen for the yeast to finnish off whats left (dont slpash it to oxidise........ thats bad) and makes for a cleaner flavoured beer. Also the remaining yeast bombs to the botton when it does finnish.

Im not saying you have to rack the beer.......... and the benifits are not 10 fold, but i find it helps!

cheers

 

[Ross]

to my understanding........ most micro and comercial breweries rack the beer off the primary yeast as soon as firmentation slows to improve the beer flavours.

Not that i'm aware of Tony, but happy to be proved wrong. The few commercial brewers i've spoken to on the subject prefer to leave the beer on the primary yeast till the brews finished.
Personally I've never found any benefit at all in transfering a nearly finished brew, other than freeing up a fermenter.

cheers Ross

 

[Tony]

fair enough.......... not pushing my views on anyone........ i thought thats what "secondary firmentation" was for?

nothing more from me.

cheers

 

[T.D.]

I have heard of some commercial outfits transferring out of primary before terminal gravity has been reached (just) and then conditioning in a sealed vessel and letting the last few gravity points begin to carbonate the beer. I don't think there are necessarily major flavour benefits of taking it off the yeast cake a few points before terminal gravity, but there may be a few practical reasons. I commonly leave my beers in primary for 2 weeks and have not had any noticable problems.

 

[matti]

Muntons kit with DME usually finnish around 1.014.
Bets bet is to rouse the yeast with rocking it and keep temp around 20 degrees for a couple of days.
If it drops fine if not prime with less sugar.

Regarding racking beer.

If done correctly it will assist in rousing the yeast and DOES improve clarity and flavour.
matti

 

[brendo]

I had similar problems recently with two of my brews.

By giving the fermenters a bit of a stir up and then bringing them up to around 20-22 for about a week, I managed to get them to drop down nicely into expected ranges.

I would give that a shot, worked well for me.

Brendo

 

[Screwtop]

Google is your friend, there is info available from commercial breweries re racking. Even a search of AHB should turn up a post with a link to an english brewery who "drop" the fermenting wort after around 24 hrs of fermentation. The wort is dropped to another fermenting vessel, providing some aeration and agitation which they say assists their yeast strain in gaining good attenuation. I remember the post, if I can find it before edit time out I'll add it to this post.

Screwy

Here it is, the brewery tour video describes the dropping of their Brakspear Beers. They rack via gravity after 16 hours fermenting. The beer stays in the secondary fermenter for 3 - 4 days and is then racked before casking or bottling. They also recover yeast off the top.

Wychwood Brewery

 

[Ross]

Google is your friend, there is info available from commercial breweries re racking. Even a search of AHB should turn up a post with a link to an english brewery who "drop" the fermenting wort after around 24 hrs of fermentation. The wort is dropped to another fermenting vessel, providing some aeration and agitation which they say assists their yeast strain in gaining good attenuation. I remember the post, if I can find it before edit time out I'll add it to this post.

Screwy

Hi Michael,

Marstons are the brewery, I have a bottle of there double dropped ale here. Not quite the same thing; they drop after a day to get off the trub & onto fresh yeast & as you say, providing some aeration early in the brewing cycle; they do not i believe, rack again near the end of primary ferment.

Cheers Ross

 

[Back Yard Brewer]

Wychwood Brewery

Have a couple mates heading to the Octoberfest in Germany then they are off to the homeland, UK. Wychwood's is one of the brewery's they are going to. Wychwood's website is fantastic, there artistic flair is fantastic and the beer is to die for!!



BYB

 

[mfdes]

Hi Tony,

I can only talk from my own personal experience. My setup is probably very different to yours, which would mean we have to do things differently to get to the same end.

The only couple of commercial breweries I know do different stuff.
One transfers to settling tanks. They do this to precipitate out as much yeast as possible and also to free up the fermenters to brew up another batch. This beer is a lager and not late hopped. The beer spends only 24h in the settling tanks and I don't think you could call this a secondary fermentation. It is done for different reasons. In addition their large volume liquid handling under CO2 pressure bears little resemblance to our racking setups. This brewery only makes lagers and their fermentation profile is designed to have the beer ready to drink after a 7-day ferment. I'm not a fan of their product.

The second brewery I know ferment mostly ales. They leave the beer in the primary usually for 3 days (5 for dry-hopped beers) after fermentation subsides and process it directly from there to kegs and bottles. They brew some killer ales.

I personally ferment in glass. I have a good seal with my silicone bung and know I can leave the beer sitting at fermentation temperature for a few days withoud adverse effects, if my yeast is healthy. The exception to this is WLP300. I usually leave the beer in the primary for an extra half of the time it took to ferment out. I allow fermentation temperature to rise towards the end of the primary, and then drop to 15-16 degrees for the rest period.

Minimising oxidation in this way means a lot of my hoppy beers retain most of their hop character months after they were kegged.

Back in the time when I fermented in plastic, I believe racking carefully to a keg to cold condition and purging the air out with CO2 would help me avoid oxidation, as plastic fermenters are permeable to oxygen. I call it cold conditioning because we're not carrying out a secondary fermentation as such, by adding extra fermentables such as speise.

MFS.