Strong Belgian Ale Fermentation Stopped!

[cat007]

Hey all

I made a 'strong belgian ale' last week, the 8th of August to be precise, and as of Friday (12th August) it would seem all fermentation had stopped.

I tested the gravity and it was at 1.022 on Friday night, and is the same now.

I have it in a temp controlled room and it was fermented using a starter of S-33 yeast at between 18-19C.

I noticed in the 24-38 hours after pitching the yeast that fermentation was very fast, to the point that sometimes it would blip the airlock non-stop for a good 10 seconds or more....

Any idea's what I can do to get it back down from 1.022 to what it should be, which is about 1.010? And why has this happened?

Thanks

Hunt

 

[raven19]

Can you advise on the recipe?

(Don't let that airlock fool you on fermentation progress).

 

[waggastew]

Without seeing the recipe......

- 1022 may not be a crazy FG on a strong ale depending on the fermentables
- 6 days is not alot of time for a high ABV beer to ferment out, come back in a weeks time and check again
- What is the predicted ABV at this point? You may be reaching the alcohol tolerance limit of the yeast
- Don't be afraid to let Belgian's warm up over the ferment to get them finished, anything upto 23-25degC is OK as long as most of the ferment is over
- For future reference it may be better to 'feed in' some of the fermentables over the course of the ferment rather than hit the yeast with all of it at once

Stew

 

[manticle]

Also next time use a belgian style yeast as that is where much of the flavour profile will/should come from.

Heaps of tips available to get from the magic number 1022 to where it should be but as Raven suggested - give us the recipe and mash schedule and it will encourage better advice.

 

[mxd]

just leave it for another week,
give it a shack every so often,
bump the temp to 21-22.

 

[cat007]

Thanks for the replies.

Here's my recipe in a nutshell:

7kg carapils
0.2kg munich 2
0.2kg crystal malt
0.1kg roasted barley
0.1kg melanoidin

mash temp 66.7C for 60 mins
drain tun and batch sparge with 11L at 75C


I can't crank the room temp up as I have others in the room that I don't want to get too warm.

I have wondered about shaking it - but what will this do? Introducing any more oxygen could cause it to spoil early though? And anyway, wouldn't there be only C02 in the headspace of the fermenter?

What about transferring to a secondary? Would this 'wake' the yeast?

 

[Nick JD]

With no simple sugars, I'd say that's just about finished.

 

[cat007]

Dam I forgot to say there was also 0.25kg of 'table sugar' added to the fermenter....

I wonder if adding a small amount of amylaze would help?

 

[DUANNE]

with 7 kg 0f carapils im surprised it got that low :unsure:

 

[manticle]

I'm with beerhog. You used carapils as your base malt? 7kg of it?

Whoever advised you to do that should be forced to crack your grain with their hands for the next 20 brews.

As for shaking - don't shake. Swirl gently. Transferring will rouse yeast too but if you really did use 7kg carapils, I don't imagine you'll get much more no matter what you do. How does it taste?

 

[cat007]

I can't remember where I got the recipe from. I changed a few things but it did originally call for 7kg of carapils so I just ran with it
I gave it a swirl just now so will check tomorrow morning and see if she's perked upThe others in the room are done using S-04, they should be sweet to ferment at 20? Or is that getting a bit warm?

 

[manticle]

Carapils is a specialty malt. You will get some fermentable sugar from it but also a lot of unfermentable sugar/dextrin. What was the OG and total volume?

20 is fine. Push it to 22 if you want.

 

[Nick JD]

WTF? I read that "carapils" as a typo.

Yeah, you need to use a base malt as your base malt.

 

[yum beer]

Me thinks some one has bemuddled his bo pils for his cara pils'


man thats gunna have more body than Elle Mcpherson

 

[felten]

man thats gunna have more body than Elle Mcpherson

More body than Magda Szubsanski even

 

[cat007]

More body than Magda Szubsanski even

hahaha. Do not want!

But yes - it will be VERY full bodied - and that's what I was aiming for.

 

[yum beer]

let us know how it turns out...

 

[cat007]

After a swirl last night it's still around the 22-23 mark. I have transferred into the secondary to get it off the trub.

I will probably just leave it for a week or two then chill for a week then keg to carbonate then bottle.

Pre-boil OG was about 66 and then the OG into the fermenter was about 60-61.

It tastes amazing. VERY full bodied and pretty high in alcohol. Can't wait for it to be bottle and carbonated! YUMM!

 

[Kieren]

Did you dilute the beer during the boil? Liquor back?

 

[cat007]

Did you dilute the beer during the boil? Liquor back?

Nope. Didn't add any water to the boil or fermenter. Batch size is smaller than planned and pre and post boil had a lower than expected OG because I did a crap batch sparge and my efficiency was pretty bad