I brewed the Imperial Stout recipe below 6 days ago, pitched a big starter of WLP007 per Mr. Malty - then adjusted it according the advice of several people here (thanks Mort, Jim!). Aerated with an aquarium pump and obtained an OG of 1.090 (target of 1.099), then pitched @ 62 and was going to let it warm up.
After less than two hours the airlock was bubbling away, and there was a good 1/2" of krausen too. But overnight activity died, and since then nothing. The krausen has collapsed and the my gravity only fell a few points. The weird thing is the surface is ‘clean’, i.e. no bacteria (at least to the naked eye), and it smells nice and chocolaty.
I soaked the glass carboy overnight in PBW and remember washing it out very thoroughly since this was the first time I used a glass one and thought it was a good arm/shoulder workout given how heavy it was. And I even let my 2.5 yr old daughter put in the Starsan b/c she likes seeing bubbles.
I pitched another starter after 4 days of nada as a Hail Mary and still nothing.
Any thoughts as to what I could have done?
14.43 2-row pale
1.99 floaked oats
1.54 chocolate malt
0.93 15L crystal (used 20)
0.90 black malt
0.90 roasted barley
0.82 Carapils mal
I mashed 90 mins @ 148 using 21.5 lbs of grain with about 6.3 gallons of water, batch-sparged, then did a 90 min boil, yielding 5.5 gallons in the carboy. OG was 1.090, last check was 1.084. I use this refractometer, which I’m starting to get the feeling is garbage:
I have a 60-quart square igloo cooler that I use as a swamp cooler that holds temps pretty well… but I don’t have a thermowell so I have to measure the outside water temp instead, hence the pitching 5 degrees so on the cool side. Temp has been at 64 since Sunday.
I’ve read stories that brewers have found crayons and other kid toys in their carboys, but I have a hose clamp around the carboy clamp to prevent that.
You need to adjust your refractometer readings - once fermentation has started they are no longer accurate. If you have a hydrometer try using that. Track it for a few days and see if it is dropping. And try warming it up a bit, that may help.
Tom is correct on needing to adjust the readings. What were your readings in Brix from the refractometer? Sean Terrill has an on calculator I use that seems to work well. Refractometer Calculator « SeanTerrill.com
Unless he has changed it, it doesn’t work very well for high gravity beers. You can trust the refractometer reading for your OG, after that it is best to stick to the hydrometer if you want it to be accurate. If you are just using it to track fermentation activity then it’s fine.
Ever since I bought the refractometer I started to use Sean’s calculator. My original brix was 21.2, and it only dropped to 20.2. I use it mostly to see when fermentation is done.
I’ll take it out of the swamp cooler and let it sit in my apt @ 70 and see if it finally takes off.
Despite krausen never forming and no tornado of stuff ever appearing in the carboy during the fermentation process, somehow the beer has turned out to be a nice 9.8% stout, at least according to
Did you ever take a hydrometer reading? An added bonus is that you get to taste the sample, which will also let you know if the sugars are/have fermented out and lets you use all of your sense to track the progress of fermentation.