Hi there - I brewed an Oatmeal Stout two nights ago and accidentally boiled off about 1 gallon of the 2.5 gallons I meant to set aside and cool off. I didn’t realize the volume loss until I added the wort into the primary. I blame my 6 month old for my brain lapse.
Currently my primary is sitting with about 4 gallons of beer and my temperature corrected gravity was 1.132… insanely high, I know.
Given I just can’t add another gallon of water now that I’m about 36hrs into fermentation (though no bubbles are in the airlock yet), should I be concerned that there’s no way I’m going to get a final gravity of 1.022 and will end up with like a 15% beer?
Thanks for pointing me to that thread. Seems I’m just above the threshold for the yeast to do anything. I’ll go ahead with your suggestion of boiling/cooling/adding 1 gallon and then crossing me fingers. Would you suggest I slowly stir everything too, or should I not longer be concerned with aerating?
Well…how much yeast did you pitch into this bad boy? My first inclination would be to let it ride and see what you end up with.
You must have been shooting for a pretty sizeable beer even at five gallons so if you pitched a gigantic amount of yeast like you’d want to for a beer that big and did everything else right you might end up with something good.
As far as FG goes I doubt you’re going to get down to 1.022 but that really depends on your process. Was this an extract batch or all-grain?
Trying to fix it at this point might do more harm than good and you can always chalk it up to a lesson learned if it doesn’t work out. And maybe it’ll end up being the best batch you’ve ever brewed ;)
I pitched 100BB little guys from a Wyeast 1056 smack pack that, according to their site, has a tolerance up to 11%.
The kit was a Father’s Day gift that’s your typical grain/DME package with a 7.2% ABV, so yes, it’s sizable, but not like an Imperial Russian or anything like that.
I’ll wait til the end of the day to see if anyone else chimes in, if not, I’ll add 1 additional gallon tonight b/c I’m worried about what’s on Wyeast’s site.
Like you said though, it could turn out to be a killer brew. Decisions decisions.
First off, you underpitched by quite a bit no matter what else is going on. Even for a med-high gravity ale that would get you 7.2% ABV you should have pitched 2-3x as much yeast. Check out Mrmalty.com to help figure out pitching rates to use.
Second, if you started out with 4 gallons of 1.132 SG wort, and you added a gallon of water then you would still have an OG of ~ 1.105. Are you sure your hydrometer measurement was correct? I’m assuming you did a partial boil and added it to water already in the fermenter, right? If so did you make sure that the entire wort volume was very thoroughly mixed before taking the sample?
From 1.105 to 1.022 would be almost 11%. It would also involve putting about 12 lbs of DME into the recipe. I don’t think that gravity reading is correct.
morticaixavier - I I agree, my OG seems crazy high which what sparked me to start this post
tygo - I shook the primary for 5 minutes then used a sanitized autosiphon to extra enough to fill the test tube, then tested it, then pitched the yeast. BUT I never thought to check Mr. Malty’s even though I actually bookmarked it months ago, nor did I look at the sticky-note I have in Palmer’s book about needing a starter when using smaller smack-packs. There definitely was not 12 lbs of DME, but I spun the hydrometer and make a small adjustment for temperature according to the set of instructions that came with it and got the 1.132.
Paul - It’s the Rogue Oatmeal Stout kit, which unfortunately just says "speciality grains ### without any weight mentioned.
At this point I’m going to assume this beer is toast, so I may as well add 1.5x more yeast and another gallon and see what happens…
If this is the brewcraft kit there’s just no way that is the right gravity reading, either that or your volume reading is way off. This site has a lot of details on that kit, with an OG of 1.070.
[quote]pecifications of this Beer Style (anticipated) Ideal Fermentation Temperature= 64?F OG= 1.070 / FG= 1.016 IBU’s= 62 / ABV= 7.2% Color= 50 SRM Yield= 5 gallons Contents of this Beer Kit Brewing Ingredients Grain Steeping Bag Hop Steeping Bags Priming Sugar Crown Caps Brewing Instruction Sheet Bottling Instructions List of Ingredients Fermentables: 3 lb Briess CBW Brewers Gold Dry Malt Extract 2 lb Briess CBW Traditional Dark Dry Malt Extract 1 lb Extra Dark Aromatic Belgian Candi Sugar Crystals Specialty Grains: 1 lb Pale 2-row Malt .5 lb Flaked Oats 1 lb Chocolate Malt .75 lb Roasted Barley .25 Crystal Malt 150L Bittering Hops: 2 oz Cascade Pellet Hops Flavor Hops: 2 oz Cascade Pellet Hops Yeast: 1 packet Lallemand Nottingham This Beer Ingredient Kit
[/quote]
Since we can’t trust your original gravity reading, taking the gravity at this point is kind of useless. I think at the very least you should add more yeast, and probably add more water. 36 hours into it isn’t that long, especially considering it’s high OG and underpitched.
That’s the exact one. I went through 3 pages of Google searches and couldn’t find the exact ingredients. I’m going to run to a local supply store tonight and can hopefully remedy this.
Thanks for all the help here guys… this is very frustrating since my last beer (only my 3rd batch) turned out fantastic, so I of course thought I knew what the heck I was doing!
I think Yogi’s “When you come to a fork in the road, take it” quote applies to this situation. The fork is pointing me towards adding more yeast and waiting. Thanks again. I report back in early Nov.
I did a bit of looking and found a few recipes for this beer. Most put your target OG between 1.056 and 1.062. If the one you used is typical to the ones I looked at, I’d just go with topping it up to 5.5 gals and letting it go. The extreme reading is more than likely from the wort not being mixed as well as you might have hoped.
I’m surprised you shook it for five minutes. ??? Top it up and add actively fermenting yeast- so you’ll need to make a starter and add it while it’s at it’s peak.
Yeah, who knows, maybe I didn’t take the reading properly, either or, I certainly didn’t add enough yeast. I’m going to make a starter tonight and add it in thursday morning.
for my brain lapse.