The Dubbel that wouldn't

[paul84043]

My Belgian Dubbel won't finish fermenting!!!!
It's going on three and a half weeks and is still burping at one every 20 seconds...

It was a Kit from northernbrewer.com, used liquid WYeast that was definitely a viable yeast, the foil pack nearly exploded before I got a chance to open it and pitch it, it cooked up really well, I used the oxygenation system, and it took off like a madman when it started fermenting.

I moved it into my basement where the temp was a bit lower, usually around 65 degrees because I heard that if you fermented it at a warmer temp it deveolps more fruity, raisin like flavors and my wife didn't want that...

So, there it sat, happily burping away for three weeks...I use a conical, so there is no transferring..
The burps slowly decreased down to one every 15 to 18 seconds by last week and I was beginning to really get frustrated with it..
I finally caved in and moved it upstars again where it is a few degrees warmer. The burp rate increased to one every 13 seconds.

My O.G. was 1.064... six days ago, it was 1.016, three days ago, it was 1.014, yesterday it was 1.011. There doesn't seem to be anywhere else for it to go, but it's still burping at one every 18 seconds!!

I tasted it yesterday, it's already aged and only needs carbonation to be a fantastic beer!! The alcohol content is pretty high, it made mine and my wifes ears warm, like taking a shot of whiskey or something similar.... It's pretty potent stuff, I want to drink it some time before the turn of the century...
Any tips or suggestions?
I intend to wait until tomorrow and take another reading, but where can it go from 1.011? I've never had a reading lower than that..

[YamahaXS]

you can't do anything but wait. sounds like a wonderful beer though!

[Tweek]

I can still go down all the way to 0, it wont but it could. I have never seen a homebrew go to 0 but it is in the realm of posibility I suppose. I recently had a batch the finished out at 1.004. That was the furthest I have ever gotten. Give it time, dont rush it. You should probabally be aging it a few months anyways, but it doesnt sound like it will make it that long if you are chomping at the bit already. I do that to sometimes, I know I should age it but hell if its good now then its good now :D

Cheers

[paul84043]

I knew that this hobby was going to force me to be a patient person......
I'M NOT A PATIENT PERSON!!!!!

I tried my Apricot wheat yesterday, It's fantastic!!!! I just keep being amazed over and over with how these beers turn out.
We keep saying, "wow, that was great, we need to make another one of those!" But there are still about a hundred other kits that I want to try first!!

I got an Irish Red Ale cooked up last night, I need a beer that will be done pretty quick, that's the only thing that's going to save the Dubbel from certain death...and me from a couple of wicked hangovers judging by the effects of one little "test tube" of beer!!! :D

The Red had only 5.3 pounds of malt in it.....so I put another pound of DME in.....just to kick things up a tiny bit. I'm sure it will still turn out great! It's already started to kick up foam and the airlock is going crazy!

I can't believe that you got a beer to go all the way down to 1.004. That's amazing.

I am going to do a Sam Adams clone for my brother in law, they offer it in both an Ale and a Lager, which would you guys do?
I'd like to do another lager, but they take so long!

[toneyc]

I'm with Paul, although I have a fair amount of patience, a lager does stretch it a bit. I've only made one lager. I finished it off yesterday. It was good, but I really couldn't tell the difference between it and the ales I've been brewing so I'm going stick with ales for a while and use the other freezer as a... um, freezer. If there had been a huge difference in the quality or taste of the beer, I would have continued to make lagers, but call me a hound, I couldn't tell.

:) Toney.

[paul84043]

That's what I'm wondering. I think I'll do the Ale just to get it done a bit faster, and then maybe sometime later when I have some beer in the basement......like maybe a week or so after NEVER....I'll do the lager.
I have the fridge setup and I'm paying to run it, so...I may as well keep using it. I try to ignore the beer in it otherwise it drives me crazy.

My Dubbel is now burping at one every 24 seconds....it IS doing something, but it sure as hell is taking it's time.

My Red ale is the most active one I have seen to date, the airlock is literally going nuts....

I cooked up a Porter last Night, it smelled REALLY good!!

I'm waiting for it to start up...

I now have 5 beers in process and the supplies in the basement are dwindling fast!

I never really expected one to take a full month to ferment.

[quantum24]

if i were you id go ahead and bottle, you can leave a beer for a long long time in secondary, and as long as the yeast stays active and there are more fermentable sugars, the beer will continue to ferment. this is why high alcohol bottle conditioned beers age well (some times anyway). most homebrew books give a chart that shows yeast activity over a period of time, the gist of it is that activity peaks after 2-3 days than drops quickly and declines at a gentle slope over a long period of time. btw, ive found that using a starter in high gravity beers really helps to finish fermentation.

[paul84043]

I thought about using a starter but was pressed for time when I brewed and forgot about it. I had even bought a bag of DME just for it...
I think in the future, if I'm making a beer of 1.06 or higher, I will definitely use a starter.

Thanks for the input!..
It sure is nice to have people to bounce these problems off of...I'd be a nervous wreck otherwise.

[banjolawyer]

I'm new to all-grain and bought a Belgian Dubbel kit from morebeer.com. It may not have been the best thing for me to start with, but next month's local home brew meeting is focusing on Belgian ales. So, I went ahead and got the kit and hope it will be ready by meeting time.

I don't know anything about starters or how that would help me to avoid the situation described in this thread.

Can anyone point me to a good tutorial on starters? Thanks.

[kevin]

here's what I do for making a starter, 2 cups water and 1/2 cup light dme boil in a sauce pan. Fill kitchen sink with cold water and ice cubes. Cover saucepan place in sink. Sanitize 1 quart maple syrup jar, bung and airlock. Pour cooled wort into jar cover with plastic wrap and shake the bejeezes out of it. Pour yeast into jar put on airlock set on top of fridge.
I pour the whole starter into my beers some people decant the liquid and pour the yeast on the bottom.

by the way haven't heard from paul84043 in a while?

[banjolawyer]

Originally posted by kevin
here's what I do for making a starter, 2 cups water and 1/2 cup light dme boil in a sauce pan.

Any particular length of time?

Originally posted by kevin
Fill kitchen sink with cold water and ice cubes. Cover saucepan place in sink.

Should I be trying to get it down to a certain temp. before adding the yeast?

Originally posted by kevin
Pour yeast into jar put on airlock set on top of fridge.

How long do I let it sit before adding it to my wort?

Originally posted by kevin
I pour the whole starter into my beers some people decant the liquid and pour the yeast on the bottom.

Either way, is this process supposed to make the wort start fermenting faster and keep it from stalling?

Thanks for your help!

[danno]

time for boiling: 10-15 minutes

temp for adding yeast: less than 80ºF

time before adding to wort: I usually let it go overnight. (hint here, after the yeast settles out, decant most of the clear liquid off the yeast, then stir it up to get the yeast back into suspension, then pour it into your wort...)

last question: yes.

[banjolawyer]

Thanks! I'm going to do this, hopefully this weekend. It will be my first batch of all-grain.

[BluesHarp]

My Bourbon Imperial Stout bubbled in secondary for nearly 5 months; it finally stopped any action about three weeks ago.
It went from 1.190 to 1.028 (about 12.2% ABV)...it was brewed in November; I'm bottling it next weekend. :cool:

[fretlessman71]

Paul, I still have one of your barleywines aging in the back room, just waiting for a nice chilly evening... or some other good reason to pop it open. The first of the two was very nice, but I wanted to see how it would handle the age. Had one of them lately? And would you like me to send you some CO beer you can't get for some of your HB? I'd make it worth your while... :)

[banjolawyer]

I'm really happy with the results of doing the yeast starter. I used a whole vial of Abbey Ale yeast, and the starter was 1400ml, added to 5 gal. wort. The fermentation cap started bubbling 30 minutes later and is still going strong.