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Author Topic: English bitter cool ferment  (Read 1784 times)

Offline pabuffon

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English bitter cool ferment
« on: February 19, 2017, 03:25:03 pm »
I'm brewing an English bitter, but with California ale yeast (WLP001).  Batch size is 3.75 gallons, I mashed at 153 degrees F, and I pitched with one White Labs liquid yeast packet.  My original gravity was 1.033, I pitched at 70 degrees F and the room has been kept between 60-65 degrees F. 

It has been a week since pitching and I just checked the gravity.  The carboy was at 61 degrees F and had a gravity of 1.015, far higher than my predicted FG.  Activity in the carboy is minimal, but the beer is still turbid. 

Do you guys think the yeast will putter along and continue to ferment slowly because of the lower temp or should I take some sort of action to rouse them?


Offline natebrews

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Re: English bitter cool ferment
« Reply #1 on: February 19, 2017, 04:28:40 pm »
I would consider turning the temp up a bit, maybe to 65 to make sure they finish up.

If you have a lot of crystals in there then you might not get as low as the predictors  say.
Risk of failure should be no deterrent to trying.

Offline pabuffon

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Re: English bitter cool ferment
« Reply #2 on: February 19, 2017, 04:44:13 pm »
I'll try that, the recipe was 4.5 lb maris otter and 6 oz crystal 40.

Offline troybinso

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Re: English bitter cool ferment
« Reply #3 on: February 19, 2017, 06:39:04 pm »
In the future, you are better off pitching the yeast cooler and then letting it rise up at the end. Sometimes when you pitch warm then let it cool down, the yeast stop prematurely. In your case, I would have put the wort in the 60 degree room and waited overnight to pitch the yeast, then maybe 2 or 3 days into fermentation, warm the beer up to 70.

Offline stpug

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Re: English bitter cool ferment
« Reply #4 on: February 20, 2017, 08:53:42 am »
Given the gravity, mash temps, terrible attenuation, yeast strain, and fermentation temps, I feel like something is incorrect.  You should be much closer to 1.007 for your FG, or general ballpark.

Are you by chance reading that FG (1.015) from a refractometer?  For instance, if you're seeing 1.015 (~4.0 brix) then you would want to use a correction calculator (HERE) to better guesstimate your correct FG.  In the case of using OG: 1.033 and FG: 4.0Brix, you would yield a corrected ~1.008 FG.

Offline pabuffon

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Re: English bitter cool ferment
« Reply #5 on: February 20, 2017, 08:13:30 pm »
Right that's what I was thinking, something is not adding up.  I was expecting to get 1.008 for my FG.  I do all my gravity readings with the same hydrometer and correct for temperature with a Thermopop thermometer.

Offline stpug

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Re: English bitter cool ferment
« Reply #6 on: February 21, 2017, 09:49:03 am »
Right that's what I was thinking, something is not adding up.  I was expecting to get 1.008 for my FG.  I do all my gravity readings with the same hydrometer and correct for temperature with a Thermopop thermometer.

Yeah, that seems strange.  It's a long shot, but did you happen to check if the hydrometer reads 1.000 in a test sample of 60°F water?