Wyeast 1388 - Slow . . .

[Jens-Kristian]

Hey,

I've got a Belgian sort of thing in the fermenter at the moment, using Wyeast 1388, and I am a little surprised at how slowly it's chewing its way through the sugars.

Anyway, the details: I'm brewing something that I suppose I would descibe as a Belgian Amber ale or some such. Could perhaps be considered a darkish triple/lightish Dubbel. I don't bother too much about trying to stay strictly within a style though.


Mash Schedule: 45 degrees for 20 minutes, 68 degrees for 80 minutes, 74 degrees for 15 minutes.

Total Malt: 7550 grammes

29 litres

OG was 1074

Efficiency: 90%

I pitched the yeast tuesday morning at about 3am and by now the gravity is at 1042. Yes, I know it's not a disaster or anything and there is still activity, but this is still much slower than I have been used to when using dried yeasts. Last brew had approximately the same OG, was pitched with T-58 and got down to 1020 in about 48 hours.

I made a nice 1 litre starter that was buzzing away very well at the time of pitching.

I initially kept the fermenter at around 23 celsius and after beginning activity (around 15 hours) I moved it to a room at 18 celsius. I've just moved it back to 23 to see if that helps.

There's no hint of infections or anything.

At any rate, my question is really just if this particular yeast is a bit slow?

Cheers,

Jens-Kristian

 

[Stuster]

Exactly the same problem I have been having lately. I have done a run of belgians, and they have been fermenting very slowly as well, even after pitching on almost the whole yeast cake. I was also a bit concerned over why this was but still got over 80% attenuation. It took nearly two weeks for fermentation to finish. I luckily found this info on Brewboard from Wyeast which answers anything.

Thanks for the email. The level of maltotriose fermentation/ metabolism
can vary from strain to strain, leading to different levels of
attenuation. Most of our strains are efficient in utilizing this sugar,
however those that have slightly lower levels of attenuation do not use
the sugar as well. See our product descriptions for attenuation levels
for each strain. The only ale strain that struggles with maltotriose
utilization is our 3724 Saison. This strain ferments well and then just
stops around 1.030-1.040 range. It will ferment to dryness and
metabolize the maltotriose, however it takes about an additional month.
1388 Belgian Strong and 1338 European Ale can also be sluggish in
metabolizing the maltotriose, but will eventually finish out. Other
strains that do not ferment maltotriose well or at all include most of
our wine strains.

So as is often the case, RDWHAHB. :lol:

This yeast just chugs away and will get there in the end. Probably best to keep it over 19 degrees but it will be ok at 18 as well.
Cheers

 

[Jens-Kristian]

Thanks Stuster!

I was thinking it'd get there in the end at any rate, as it is chugging away nicely and with decent activity in the water lock. I was just getting a little concerned that nothing much seemed to be happening to the gravity.

Good to know that . . . well . . . I'll need to be more patient. Patience is a virtue . . . having to suffer it, a curse.

And I'm down to my last two bottles of homebrew at the moment. I'm hating it. I'll be setting down another over the weekend so that next time I'm better prepared. It'll be the first time I have two full brews going simultaneously.

Cheers,

Jens-Kristian

 

[Stuster]

Agreed. Waiting is really no good at all. It is by far the slowest yeast I've used. But the beers have been nice IMO so worth it I suppose.

BTW, 90% efficiency is really good. How have you tweaked your system to get it that good? Any tips?

 

[barfridge]

Cooling most Belgian yeasts is not a good idea. I was reading in brew like a monk that almost all belgian breweries start coolish (18-20), then let the brews go and the can end up as high as 30 degrees!

There is a bit where one of the monks says that cooling the beer is the worst thing you can do as the yeast crashes and refuses to work any more.

I know this goes against everything you have been told about making beer, but welcome to the strange and wonderful world of Belgians

 

[Jazman]

plus with high gravity beers a bigger start helps i would use a two litre starter instead of 1 litre it is only ales that i would use a samller starter

 

[hockadays]

another question about this yeast,

Do you find it gives off a strong medicinal smell. I chucked a starter of this yeast due to this smell and am wondering if it might be part of the style. The starter got up to around 25degC..

Thanks
Matt

 

[Jazman]

not with me but i was fermenting it around 20 deg

 

[Screwtop]

Have to agree with lots mentioned here. Started out making a CSA planning on using a recultured CSA yeast. When it was stepped up to about 1L I had a sniff and decided it was bad and so used a 1388 culture instead. It was a big wort about 1070 from memory, fermented at 19c. It stopped at 1030 first then after a shake at 1020. Took weeks to get down to 1014. Could not use a Refrac to measure the gravity as it was still bubbling and flocy but the Hydro indicated 1014. After another week in the fermenter things hadn't changed, it had a vegemite smell but bottled it anyway. After 8 weeks in the bottle it tastes very sweet and smells of Vegemite, think it's a gonner. I have had the same trouble with a couple of belgians. I believe the advice here is correct big starters and warmer ferm temps. I know one brewer who adds a little fresh yeast culture to his Belgians during fermentation to keep the colony viable to be able to metabolise the higher sugars (maltotriose). Seems to work very well for him, as he makes some excellent beers.

 

[Jens-Kristian]

Thanks for all the comments. It's settled my mind.

I have no medicinal smell. The little samples I've done to take gravity readings have had a good, fruity smell and actually tastes quite good for the stage it's at now.

I'll do a larger starter next time. Checking my notes it was more like 1.3 litres, but a two litre starter would naturally be better still. Also, I'll keep it at the slightly higher temperature. I've had a look at my thermometer and it looks like it may be showing a point or two high, but I'm not entirely certain about that.

And yeah, from what I've read in different sources, brewing Belgian styles seems to be a little bit a world of its own. Quite exciting, really!

As for my stystem and how I've tweaked it . . . well, you see, I'm using an incredibly simple/cheap set-up!

My process is as follows:

30 litre stainless steel pot on the stove. I use this for mashing as well. With this particular beer I started at 45 degrees - put lid on and left it sitting just next to the hotplate. The loss of heat was minimal, perhaps 1 point or so over the twenty minutes. Then warmed up to 68 degrees while stirring gently in order to distribute the heat properly and not have the bottom part of the grains get too hot. Left it like that for 80 minutes the same way as above. Again, the loss of temperature was rather small, but after about 40 minutes I put it back on the hotplate for a couple of minutes while stirring and took it off again. Mash-out at 75 degrees for fifteen minutes. It takes a bit for my stove to get all this up to that temperature so I have to stir a fair bit to distribute the heat, but I try to do it as gently as possible.

My lauter tun is about as unprofessional as anything you'll see: It's a 25 litre plastic carboy. I have sawn the top off it and drilled a load of holes into it, put a tap in the bottom of the carboy and fitted the top/filter into the bottom so it just fits above the tap. I've found it keeps the temperature quite alright while lautering, and by keeping the sparge water on the slightly hot side it is no problem at all.

On my first brew I had 78% efficiency and it's been climbing since then. I think one of the reasons is that I never add water to the wort. I always make sure that I collect as much as possible of what comes out of the lauter tun - even the very thin stuff at the end. I'd rather pour in some extra thin wort than add water. It all adds up you know, and I've always had a thing with trying to utilise things as much as possible.

That's about it, really. Simple, isn't it? And that's another thing I do as much as I can to follow. Make things as simple as you can while still making it work well. The way I see it, if people could brew beer several hundred years ago with a large bowl to boil water in and a wooden bucket with a lid on it, then certainly we don't need a high-tech system.

Cheers,

Jens-Kristian

 

[Andyd]

I ran a wheat beer using 1388 and after 2 weeks it was stuck at about 1026. I probably pulled it off the yeat a little early - it's only my third batch and I was worried about autolysis... sounds like that might have been the wrong thing to do.

D'Oh!

 

[Jens-Kristian]

Yeah. From what I've gathered by now, we should probably be generally less worried by autolysis than has sometimes been indicated in a lot of sources.

From what I've heard, it's one of those things that can happen, but rarely do. If you rack the beer after a week/ten days it's very rare that anything will have happened before then. I've heard people say that three weeks in primary and a month in secondary has been no problem for them. I probably wouldn't test that, but still.

Cheers,

Jens-Kristian

 

[tdh]

Hi Screwtop, no probs with a refrac taking readings at any stage. That's what they are good at.

Why not do a hydrometer reading as well as a refrac reading to see if they correlate.


tdh

 

[razz]

G'day members. FWIW. I was reading Pierre Rajotte's "Belgian ale" last night. He says that all his ferments start at 24 degrees and can go as high as 30 degrees.