SUPER THick Wort after 1 Week

General Homebrew Discussion
1

I put a 1.112 og RIS in the fermenter last Sunday, pitched 3 packs of Wyeast 1318 (London III) at 64*. Temps have maintained sub 70. Ferm is slowing down so I thought I would pull a sample for gravity and taste check yeast health. The sample I pulled was as thick as a milk shake from McDonalds. So thick I can’t realistically take a gravity test to gauge yeast health and progress. Has anyone experienced this? Is this typical? Is it just the amount of yeast in suspension or is something gone wrong?

The below was a BIAB of 8 gallons, 1 gallon pulled off after chem for a dunk sparge yielding 6.5 preboil gallons

preboil was 1.072
post boil (OG) with LME addition- 1.112 after 75 minute boil yeiding 4.5 gallons to the fermenter

Here are the details:

Recipe-
16# Marris Otter
24 oz Black Malt
2# flaked Oat
8 oz caramel 60
1# debittered choc

3# Pale LME at 30min

2

That’s weird! Pics?

3

I am currently crashing the sample in hopes I can pull a gravity in the am (40* in the garage). I don’t have any pics right now. It smells fine though if not a bit yeasty

4

This is a very odd condition indeed.  A few possibilities come to mind.

  1. three packs of yeast seems like a lot even for a OG of 1.112, especially if the yeast was very new.  But it’s not likely the cause of the problem.
  2. some kind of infection, perhaps?
  3. the flaked oats was part of the grain bill, right, and not added to the boil?

I’m interested in what some of the other brewers have in mind.

5

I made a barley wine once that was as viscous as warm syrup.  It took a while, but it fermented out eventually.  It was not the most enjoyable beer, but with age it became tolerable as a winter sipper.

Give your batch a good long while (a month or more probably).  Don’t muck around in it too much in the meantime, if you can stand the wait (brew another beer and don’t check back on that thick one until you are fully done and packaged on the new beer - that will give you something to take your mind off the big beer)…

6

When making a beer of that high an OG I pitch the yeast and forget about it for at least three to four weeks. One week is way too soon to be helicoptoring over it and taking samples.

7

Someone mentioned 3 packs of yeast being high, I disagree. In fact I could see pitching 4 (or making a starter, or even pitching on an existing yeast cake). You almost can’t overpitch a beer that high OG.

8

Agreed

9

Sample taken from the bottom of fermenter?  Trub and hops that have settled down?

10

They shouldn’t effect the reading

11

I doesn’t sound like he actually took a reading.

12

That’s the way I read it too.  After transferring beer from fermenter to keg today I couldn’t help but think the stuff left at the bottom of the fermenter looked like one of those shamrock shakes that McDonald’s used to come out with every year

13

I wasn’t able to take a reading and I appreciate everyone chiming in. After crashing my sample, out of 7 oz, 5 were yeast (I performed a trub dump from the conical at day 3).

I oxygenated the wort before pitching for 1.5 hours with a sanitary filtered aquarium pump.

I never expected my yeast to propagate as well as they did.

The plan was too ride this out in primary for about 2 months and then pull off most off the yeast. Leaving some behind to clean house. 3 months and in the bottle until next winter.