Anyone With Beersmith Can Help Me?

[moodgett]

Hi all,

another quick question,

have my Balrogs Bitter fermenting

3.26 kg LDME
410g Crystal Grain
16g Target @ 60
18g Pilgrim @ 60
10g EKG @ 10
Whirlflock tab @ 10
Safale S-04 pitched Monday 28.09.09

23 litres

OG was estimated to be 1.059 and came in at 1.060, so was happy about that

has been fermenting nice and steadily around 18 degrees for 1 week until the last couple of days with temp decrease around 15-16 has slowed right down, now i have done the gentle agitation and wrapping it in towels and brought it into loungeroom which is a warmer ambient temp, has seemed to stop.

i checked hydro and it says 1.018, now the main question is approx what should be my finishing gravity due to the LDME?
i usually leave my brew ferment around 2-3 weeks regardless before bulk priming and bottling, but i will be going away next weekend and i dont want the yeasties alsleep and not cleaning up my beer if i have them going for another week

cheers

 

[raven19]

Rack to a second vessel would be my next recommended step.

I wouldve though it should drop to lower than 1018 - dependant on the details on the crystal grain though!

Leave your hydrometer sample in an even warmer spot (window sill or similar) for a few days, then check it again - see if it continues to drop.

 

[bconnery]

Beersmith suggests 1014 without taking into account the yeast.
This can vary a lot with the brand of extract so it isn't too far off the mark to expect 1018 would be the end.

I think you could happily bottle it now but if you don't really want to touch it now then I'd follow the suggestion of racking to secondary...

 

[moodgett]

Beersmith suggests 1014 without taking into account the yeast.
This can vary a lot with the brand of extract so it isn't too far off the mark to expect 1018 would be the end.

I think you could happily bottle it now but if you don't really want to touch it now then I'd follow the suggestion of racking to secondary...

cheers guys,

i will check again this arvo first, my other fermenter is a bunnings special and havnt drilled a hole for airlock, you reckon just gladwrap it and seal with the Rubber lid seal?

 

[katzke]

One more week will not hurt anything. Leave it as it is unless you just have to rack it.

 

[reviled]

Moodgett, what movie is your avatar off? :huh:

 

[Screwtop]

S-04 usually achieves apparent attenuation of around 75% in good fermentable wort. Given good fermentable wort 0f 1.060 this would mean an FG of around 1.014

Since you have used over 10% crystal malt and LDME your fermentability is going to be down a bit so at 1.018 your yeast has achieved near 69 AA% I'd say it's finished.

Leave your hydrometer sample in an even warmer spot (window sill or similar) for a few days, then check it again - see if it continues to drop.

Good advice to do this to test for terminal gravity. A handy tip is to take some wort a couple of hours after pitching. Give a gentle stir then take your sample, crash ferment the sample at 30 or so, will be finished in a few days and give a good indication of what terminal gravity your wort should reach.

Cheers,

Screwy

 

[moodgett]

Moodgett, what movie is your avatar off? :huh:

it's the final scene from Evil Dead III: Armies of Darkness
if you havnt seen it check the link out
[post="0"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NmzF9pj9Yk[/post]

Love The Trilogy

 

[moodgett]

cheers everyone, i have taken a sample and gonna keep it on the sill, will let you all know how i go

 

[raven19]

Based on it being at 1018, and theoretically going down to 1014 minimum, you could also bottle it with less priming sugar if desperate to get it out of the fermenter.

And if going to secondary, glad wrap on top will be fine for sure.

Just a thought.

 

[moodgett]

Based on it being at 1018, and theoretically going down to 1014 minimum, you could also bottle it with less priming sugar if desperate to get it out of the fermenter.

And if going to secondary, glad wrap on top will be fine for sure.

Just a thought.

here we go decided to rack to secondary, i guess i wil see what happens in a week



how does the gladwrap look? i feel dodgy about it but oh well, all the cool kids are doing it :beerbang:

 

[moodgett]

here we go decided to rack to secondary, i guess i wil see what happens in a week



how does the gladwrap look? i feel dodgy about it but oh well, all the cool kids are doing it :beerbang:

fermenter is at 20c today in the room which is expected for the next week or so, hoping it will finish up if it hasnt already
oh and by the way, checked out http://www.brewcraft.com.au/wa.asp?idWebPa...p;idDetails=172 which i understand is not probably not 100% accurate, indicates for the ingredients i have entered OG is 1.060 and FG is 1.019 is this just a coincidence?

 

[moodgett]

ok woo hoo for racking and warming up the weather
has dropped about 2 gravity points now and some really light krausen has formed on top ^_^

 

[cdbrown]

Gladwrap - looks just like my fermenters.

Racking does a good job if things have stalled and also helps to clear up the brew. Bonus of racking and moving it somewhere else means your primary is now ready for a new batch.

 

[moodgett]

*UPDATE*


Hi all,

just an update, this brew was in secondary for 3 weeks, i even repitched some more s-04 just to make sure and it just wouldnt drop below 1.016, So i decided to bottle

just bottled it into JS stubbies and 1 1.5L coke bottle to keep tabs on carbonation

wanted 2.2 volumes of co2 at 18L so i bulked it with 98g of dex

has been 3 days and i dont know if im being super paranoid, keep checking the PET bottle and it seems quite firm, can anyone confirm the correct method for checking the PET bottle?

also to further my worries, i decided to crack one this morning and poured it into a glass (didnt wait to see how long carbonation lasted though) and it has a perfect head and seems pretty damn carbonated, which worries me, although my last DSGA i bottled was carbed at 1 week

or could it just be the higher temps we have had have caused it to carb up quicker?