[Pope of Dope]

Brewed a brown ale 3 weeks ago - 5 gal batch.  Mashed at a perfect 152f, and used Nottingham that I rehydrated.  OG at 1.052.  In fermenter for the first 2 weeks at exactly 57f, then let it go up to 65 last week.  We're still at 1.024 gravity.  This seems to happen frequently.  I plan on leaving it longer, any hope it will drop down near 1.010?  If not what was the likely error?

[denny]

What's the recipe?  What temp did you rehydrate the yeast at?

[a10t2]

Are you using a hydrometer or refractometer?

[Pope of Dope]

Rehydrated yeast at 100f - one packet.  Using hydrometer to measure. 

9lb 2 row
1.5 marris o
.5 special roast
.75 120l crystal

[a10t2]

Efficiency seems fairly low, ~60%. Have the hydrometer and thermometer been calibrated recently?

[Pope of Dope]

no calibration...ever.  It's the one that came with my first homebrew kit 12 years ago.  Should I be embarrassed about that?  I don't know how you'd calibrate this, it's a glass floaty thing, put it in the beer and read the number. 

[majorvices]

Put it in water (preferably distilled but doesn't have to be) at 60 degrees and see if it is at 0. If not, add or subtract up or down depending.

[denny]

Rehydrated yeast at 100f - one packet.  Using hydrometer to measure. 

9lb 2 row
1.5 marris o
.5 special roast
.75 120l crystal

If your thermometer was off, you could have gotten the rehydration hot enough to affect the yeast.  Another reason to not rehydrate.

[Phil_M]

How does the beer taste?

[Pope of Dope]

beer tastes good, but no carb yet.  calibrated hydrometer, all is correct - 0% reading in water on the line.  I rehydrated the yeast because I was getting mixed results by just dumping in the dry yeast.  Maybe I'll go back to that.  I sloshed the fermenter around to awaken some yeast and will wait another week to see what happens.  Will let you know. 

[Phil_M]

beer tastes good, but no carb yet.  calibrated hydrometer, all is correct - 0% reading in water on the line.  I rehydrated the yeast because I was getting mixed results by just dumping in the dry yeast.  Maybe I'll go back to that.  I sloshed the fermenter around to awaken some yeast and will wait another week to see what happens.  Will let you know.

I asked how it tastes because I tend to have the opposite issue with beer finishing "too" low. However, the beer was all fine, and my friends all enjoyed it. My take away was that if the beer is fine it's more important to have things be repeatable than to hit the "right" numbers.

[joelv]

Brewed a brown ale 3 weeks ago - 5 gal batch.  Mashed at a perfect 152f, and used Nottingham that I rehydrated.  OG at 1.052.  In fermenter for the first 2 weeks at exactly 57f, then let it go up to 65 last week.  We're still at 1.024 gravity.  This seems to happen frequently.  I plan on leaving it longer, any hope it will drop down near 1.010?  If not what was the likely error?

Any chance that the temperature bounced around during fermentation? I’ve had a few fermentations that stalled when the temp dropped - some yeast seem more susceptible to this than other strains.


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[a10t2]

beer tastes good, but no carb yet.

Wait, was the 1.024 reading after adding priming sugar?

[Pope of Dope]

Left the beer for a bit longer, shook it around in fermenter.  I got a couple more points and FG ended up at 1.020.  Now it's in the keg and I'll have to be satisfied with a 4.2 ABV.  Just hope it's not too sweet, can't really tell until it's all carbed up.  I keep running into this issue of getting 60-65% efficiency lately.  I'm brewing 100% BIAB, my limitatioins are not being able to run grain through 2x, I have to be satisfied with the LHBS mill, which I think should be adequate.  I don't stir during mash, but I do during doughing in. I mash out, then squeeze bag but don't sparge.  Temps are dialed in for my mash and ferment chamber.  The mash temp is held and have calibrated the analogue thermometer on my kettle.  I use a SS brewbucket as a fermenter and have calibrated the digital thermometer as well as the Inkbird in the ferm chamber - all are working.  I mash at 152 for 60mins, cool down to 70 or just below, airate by shaking and pitch one packet of yeast, then into the chamber for 3 weeks to a month.  My OG's are all within desirable range. 

This leads me to believe that I am not getting enough fermentable sugars, and is probably a problem run into often with the BIAB method.  What I can do is stir once during mash, use my pump to try and fly sparge over the bag with a gallon or so of 170f water (hook up pump from other kettle and run silicone tube into hung bag after mash out--then squeeze), mash lower at 150 or so.

Does this alll sound right?  Any other ideas to try?     

[a10t2]

I have to be satisfied with the LHBS mill, which I think should be adequate. 

Probably a 90% chance it's poor crush. I'd say 99% but low extraction combined with low attenuation could mean a pH issue. Do you test mash pH? How's your water?