Whats a good ending gravity

[fracman_okc]

Well I'm relative new to beer brewing this is about my 6th batch. I ordered a porter kit from st pats and doctored it up with additional extract, molassas, and lactose. I bumped it up to about 6 1/2 gal. Original gravity of 1.085. It went crazy in the primary, but since I racked over to a carboy it hasn't got to a low gravity. It was 1.032 when I racked to secondary and its still at 1.029 after 3+ weeks in the carboy. It still keeps the airlock pushed to the top. Do I need to make a started up and infuse some additional yeast into it? Or is it probably done all its going to and ready to bottle? Any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Tweek]

wow .085 is huge for a porter. What yeast did you use? What temperature has it been at and is it at now? If it is too cold or too hot the yeast could have gone dead or dormant. It is likely that a yeast that came with a porter kit would be about tapped out with that amount of alcohol (you are at 7.45 by volume). You are not outside of the range of a strong porter but you are about at the end of it.

A few things you could try if you want to squeeze those last few points out.

1. give your carboy a nice swirl. You can do this with the airlock still on it. This bring the yeast that has settled down back into suspension and if you are at the right temperature for your yeast it should kick off.

2. Get some yeast hulls from your homebrew shop. Yeast hulls give the little yeasties a new body. The alcohol attacks the yeast bodies until it dies. This can sometimes allow the yeasts to go further in their ferment.

3. Get a pilsner enzyme and toss it in. sometimes if your ferment gets stuck tossing in an enzyme will do the trick.

hope that helps

Good Luck

[fracman_okc]

The yeast was Wyeast XL slap pack. Its been in the spare bedroom the whole time so the temp has been in the 66-73 range.

[Tweek]

the temp range is good (assuming those arent swings) which Wyeast specifically was it? each yeast strain has a diferent tolerance to alcohol.

[fracman_okc]

Unfortunately I didn't write down the yeast type, but I think it was a irish or english ale type.

[toneyc]

The straight porter kit from St. Pat's has the Irish Ale yeast and the Swedish porter has a German Ale yeast, if that helps any.

:) Toney.

[BluesHarp]

molasses tends to raise the SG a bit; depending on the malt you added, if it was high in unfermentable sugars, you may just be done. I would agree with giving it a good swirling just to see if anything kicks up. I wouldn't worry if the SG has been stable, it sounds like you have a very malty, heavy, potent brew. I would be tempted to bottle or keg it; wait a couple weeks, and try it. I have seen similar numbers, and have had some wonderful, malty, butt-kicking concoctions. It may not be true to the porter style, but I bet it will be very good.

[shughes600]

My calculations show you at 7.45% alcohol by volume. If this is enough for you assure you are at the endpoint. I am usually comfortable bottling when I have 3 consecutive daily SG readings the same (within a point). I would be surprised to see additional yeast help very much. A lack of sugar will obviously retard yeast activity, but so will alcohol. Alcohol actually kills the yeast. If you are patient try pitching some more, otherwise bottle after you are sure it is stable.

[S.F.B.]

With a starting gravity of .085, you pushed that into the "Imperial" category.

For future reference, Irish ale yeast is not all that alcohol tolerant. Your yeast is probably done all it is going to do. If you desire a lower gravity, next time go with Wyeast 1056 American ale or White Labs Dry English. These are more tolerant to higher alcohol. You may lose some of the malt flavors but you will get a higher alcohol content. If that is what you want.

[paul84043]

I agree with the previous, I think the high alcohol content killed off the yeast.
Some of the higher gravity beers are repitched at racking with another type of yeast, one that comes to mind is Champagne yeast, it's highly tolerant and gives the beer a very unique flavor profile.

I had an Amber ale that just recently got stuck, I repitched some yeast from a batch of steam beer that I had a starter going for. I'm sure that the flavor will be modified, but it's fermenting again, and I am still positive that it will be great beer.

I just stumbled across this recipe last night, it's called a RED RASPBERRY IMPERIAL STORM TROOPER STOUT

it has an OG of 1.115, to only net 3.5 gallons.
It has a total of about 12 pounds of fermentables and 44 ounces of raspberry puree.
There are 5 hop additions while cooking and it's dry hopped in the secondary.
It is racked twice and yeast is repitched at the first racking.....

Anyone feel brave?

[london1o1]

I'm very curious about the raspberry imperial stout recipe, paul. Sounds like a great next beer for me to try. Just finished bottling a russian imperial stout and a strong ale with an OG of 1.112, and I'm eager to put my carboy back to use.
Actually, this is getting off the subject, but I'm a college student near Cleveland, but I'm going to be spending the summer in San Diego, and don't really want to bring all my brewing paraphanalia with me. So I'm looking for a good huge beer (I love big beers) that I can leave in primary fermentation for about/at least 2 1/2 months. Any suggestions? How long a fermentation process does the raspberry imperial stout require?

[paul84043]

I have been seriously comtemplating this recipe myself...here it is copied from the web:

RED RASPBERRY IMPERIAL STORM TROOPER STOUT

This recipe is based "loosely" on B. Burch's Imperial Stout Framboise
that won a first in the nationals last (1990) year. I "improved on his
efforts by using a more grain/less extract, increased the total amount
of raspberries (and how they are added), and slightly increased the hop
bitterness to compensate for the increased "sweetness" or unfermentable
dextrines. Please let me know if you try a batch, I would like to
"trade" samples!
3.25 gallons net
5 lbs. Munton & Fison 2-row Pale Malt
1 lb. Domestic Munich Malt
1 lb. Domestic Vienna Malt
4 oz. 80L Crystal
2 oz. 60L Crystal
2 oz. 10L Crystal
3 oz. Black Patent Malt
5 oz. Roast Barley
5 oz. Chocolate Malt
2 lbs. Dry Rice Solids
1 lb. Extra Dark Dry Malt Extract (DME)
1 lb. Dark DME
8 oz. Malto-Dextrine Powder
7 oz. Dark Brown Sugar
44 oz. Fresh Red Raspberries (32 oz. in primary, balance in secondary)
.5 oz each Erioca & Galena hop pellets (boiled 60 minutes)
.5 oz. Northern Brewer Pellets (boiled 30 minutes)
.25 oz. Chinook Pellets (boiled 30 minutes)
1 oz. Fuggles Pellets (boiled 30 minutes)
.5 oz Fuggles Pellets added at end of boil
.5 oz each Bullion & Fuggles (dry hopped in secondary with 2nd addition
of red raspberries)
Wyeast # 1098 (Whitbread) ale culture in primary (this fermented the
wort to 1.049 in 4 days @ 65 degrees)
Pastuer Champagne yeast added @ racking to secondary

Original Gravity 1.115 10/19/91
1st Racking Gravity 1.049 10/23/91
2nd Racking Gravity 1.024 11/04/91
Terminal Gravity 1.020 11/08/91

All grains were mashed per Papazain upward step infusion mash in TCJOHB, (The Complete Joy of Home Brewing)
only the first runnings were collected***NO SPARGING***. To this the
remaining DME, dark brown sugar, and rice extract were added and total
quantity of liquid was brought up to five gallons. The wort was boiled
for one hour BEFORE the first additions of hops (total two hour boil).
The long boil brings the total to aprox. 3.5 gallons, you loose about a
quart when racking to the secondary. The wort is force chilled and the
raspberries added to the secondary. Proceed as usual from this
point...do not bottle until complete!

The recipe does not specify topping off to 5 gallons, but I think it would be fine, actually, you could take a gravity reading before topping off and that would tell you how far you need to go. You could even tailor it to the gravity you want to start with.

I don't think that you would want to let this one sit in the primary for too long, actually, you probably want to follow the racking times pretty close, but once it's done with the first couple of rackings, it could probably sit for quite a while, and it could definitely sit bottled for 6 months easy.