Yeast Attenuation

[jimmyjack]

i am on day 5 in fermenting an APA. The SG was 1054 and yesterday and today the gravity readings were 1020 respectively. This will put the beer around 4.4 AbV with 62% attenuation. Should I expect more points to drop off that final gravity???
The yeast is 1056 Cal and the expected attenation is 75% with an ABV of 5.2% If I rack into secondary will this help it drop futher???

 

[Linz]

You should be losing a few more points...but...was it a fresh yeast or recultured (gen?), how was the aeration of the wort?
Racking 'could' fix it......or cause a stuck ferment...
Are you at the correct ferment temp too??

Ive also heard of dry hopping into a secondary restarting ferments too..but...heresay

Personally I would wait a few more days and take another reading with the hydrometer

 

[jimmyjack]

All info needed:

yeast was from 1 of 10 vials split from a wyeast pack and started 4 days before pitching.

fermented at a constant of 18 degrees.

beer tastes great and is one of the best so far.

Still bubbling at around 3 bubbles a minute.

wort was shaken when pitched for 10 minutes in ferm

I want to dry hop


thanx jj

 

[ozbrewer]

1056 can slow down , but it will attenuate to 75% if its healthy, Did you mae a vial into a starter, what size starter was it??

1056 can handle a little higher temps no worries so maybe you can raise the temp to 20-21 deg to give it a boost, As Linz says racking will do 1 of 2 things, but the fact that 1056 is a low flocc yeast you will still have a bit in the wort...

Has the yeast head droped yet?, I have found that 1056 will keep a nice head of yeast on the top of the beer untill its done, then it will drop off, I would say that if is god a yead of yeast its still working.


Forget what your air lick is doing, they are a barrier for bacteria and nothing more, too many homebrewers rely and what the airlock is doing and panic if there is little or no action, when using ale yeasts in particular, the top of the brew and a hydromiter/refractomiter are the tools you should be using to see if the beer is fermenting;.....oh thats rambling on again....not much help


If it were me, ill raise the temp for a few days and see what happens, when you take your test readings, have a loo at the temp of the sample as well, with the weather we are having right now the sample can raise a few deg in minutes

 

[jimmyjack]

Made the vial into a two litre starter (first real starter i ever made)

yea, krausen has dropped

a refracometer is a luxury cant afford right now, (love to have one though)

I just put it up to 20 degrees so maybe it will warm it up and drop just that little bit more.

thanx for advice all you guys are a great resource.

cheers jj

 

[Jye]

Same advice as the others, just raise the temp a few degrees and it should drop a few more points. Then rack and dry hop for a week and it should be all done.

 

[Jye]

Made the vial into a two litre starter

Did you pitch the whole thing or just the slurry? You should get good attenuation since you pitched the correct amount of yeast.

 

[Weizguy]

JJ,

FWIW, if U R at all concerned that's it's not attenuating apropriately, I would rouse the yeast with some gentle swirling.

Maybe it's because I do this for stronger beers, but I don't generally have a problem with attenuation. For one brew though (a strong ale), I roused the yeast daily and was able to attenuate to about 15% alc, using a 10g yeast sachet (yes, dry yeast) and a packet of pilsner enzyme (from an imported Euro pils - prob a dry enzyme), to a final gravity of 1.001, over a period of several cool months.

So, if U don't want to raise the temp, rouse the yeast. Rock the fermentor slowly and/or swirl gently. You won't have problems due to aeration as there should be only CO2 above the beer if the vessel seals correctly. Be prepared for rapid bubbling as CO2 comes out of solution. You may need to top up the airlock. Give it a couple of days to settle out before racking to secondary.

Hope this helps.

Seth

 

[jimmyjack]

Jye, I pitched the whole starter.

Weizguy, i will give it a swirl as I have read that in other posts. How much should i do about 30 seconds or so?

 

[ozbrewer]

the other thing to consider is the ingredients...is it a kit/modified kit/mash/part mash?

 

[jimmyjack]

Full mash,


5.00 kg Pale Malt, Traditional Ale (Joe White) (5.9 EBC) Grain 94.3 %
0.20 kg Caramalt (Joe White) (49.3 EBC) Grain 3.8 %
0.10 kg Crystal (Joe White) (141.8 EBC) Grain 1.9 %
12.00 gm Chinook [12.10%] (60 min) Hops 16.8 IBU
12.00 gm Northdown [8.50%] (60 min) Hops 11.8 IBU
10.00 gm Simcoe [12.00%] (5 min) Hops 2.8 IBU
10.00 gm Cascade [6.00%] (5 min) Hops 1.4 IBU
20.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.50%] (1 min) Hops 0.8 IBU
15.00 gm Amarillo Gold [8.50%] (Dry Hop 3 days) Hops -
0.28 oz Polyclar (Secondary 1.0 days) Misc
0.91 tbsp Salt (Boil 60.0 min) Misc
1.11 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 2 ltr starter from vial (Wyeast Labs #1056)

 

[ozbrewer]

ok so long as your mash temp is not to high it should drop another 6 points or more

 

[Screwtop]

Would expect attenuation to be better with a full mash. My two cans and K & K's often finish high using differing yeasts, a rouse seems to help. Think your yeast is a bit lazy, give it a wake-up.

 

[Weizguy]

Swirl about 15- 20 seconds, or until you can see the yeast lift from the bottom and the beer goes all murky. The object is to get the yeast off the bottom and back up to where the food is. Makes me hungry just thinking about it.

Have you any experience with this same recipe? You can judge expected results by it, if U have.

Best of luck.

Seth