Accident! Any suggestions are appreciated

Gorm

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I'm new to home brewing. I started my fourth batch on October 10th. I was mixing water into my brew and knocked over my dextrose container. Bingo! Direct hit into my primary. Couldn’t do it twice if I tried. I don’t know how much dextrose actually got in there but I’m guessing about 1kg.There was some activity (fermentation) that night. It settled down to about one bubble every 10 seconds the next day. This morning it was bubbling just fine but now it has stopped completely.
This is the recipe I’m using:
4.4kg Golden Light LME
0.45 kg Crystal 15
0.14 kg Crystal 60
1.5 oz Centennial for 60 min
1.5 oz Cascade for 15 min
1 oz Centennial for 1 min
1 oz Cascade for 1 min
Safale US-05

Target OG was 1.058. I measured the OG at 1.076
Should I just start over? Can I save it? Or should I just go through the motions and see what happens?
I am thinking of adding a yeast with a higher tolerance but, would that make the final product taste yeasty?
Thanks for any advice.
 
Can you dilute the wort ? , dex won't add any flavour or body but will bump up the ABV .

That sort of OG will make life hard on the yeast , did you dry pitch a single sachet ?
 
Hi Mark,
Thanks for the reply.
Yes. I did a dry pitch with one sachet.
Would it hurt if I added something like a Belgian type yeast?
I do have a second primary I could split and dilute if necessary. But I'm not sure of the logistics. Would I just make another batch, mix the two together and pitch an extra sachet of yeast?
 
RDWHAHB. Sounds like you have made an Imperial IPA by mistake and under pitched it. First I would try rousting the yeast by rocking the vessel back and forth. If that doesn't get them going again you could add more of the same yeast that is hydrated or in a starter. What temp are you fermenting at? If in the low or mid 60's F raising the temp up to 68 or 70 may help. If none of this works yes you can introduce another yeast but once the fermentation has started be careful about getting oxygen into the beer. The 05 should do the job with enough yeast cells.
 
rehydrate more of the 05 and add it making a starter would be even better in future , a single pack may get the job done but over stressing them can lead to off flavours
mental maths has your ABV at 9 % or so in the bottle
have you taken a hydro sample ? doubt 1 sachet of yeast would get it even close to FG in 3 days
 
Like MDP said, take some hydro readings. You can better monitor fermentation progress by taking successive readings than judging by bubbling activity.

I'd say you can go either way: Keep the flavor, accept the high ABV and re-pitch with a more muscular yeast OR split the batch and dilute the flavor and re-pitch with more of the same. Personally I'd do to former.

Seems to me the Beer Gods have a lesson in store for you. This beer is not going according to your plan, it's running on its own, so just ride along and see what you end up with. I'm guessing you'll like it so much you'll be trying to recreate the 'accident' on purpose. Luck is that way... what seems like bad turns out to be good, and you end up finding something special you'd never have tried for intentionally.

And keep us updated...
 
Wow! Thank you all very much...glad I joined.
The temp has been a constant 68F. Current gravity is 1.040.
I tend to agree the existing yeast won't hit the FG of 1.015.
I have another batch I was going to wait to make. So, what I think I'll do is stick with the 05 yeast, make a starter for the new batch and introduce some of it to this batch. Maybe that will give it a kick start.
I will certainly keep ya'll posted.
Thanks again.
 
RDWHAHB. Sounds like you have made an Imperial IPA by mistake and under pitched it. First I would try rousting the yeast by rocking the vessel back and forth. If that doesn't get them going again you could add more of the same yeast that is hydrated or in a starter. What temp are you fermenting at? If in the low or mid 60's F raising the temp up to 68 or 70 may help. If none of this works yes you can introduce another yeast but once the fermentation has started be careful about getting oxygen into the beer. The 05 should do the job with enough yeast cells.

I'm agreeing with this one. Here's what the dextrose will do: You'll get a higher alcohol content beer with a thinner body. Perhaps that's not exactly what you want but hey, you might like it! Just let it ferment out and you'll do fine. But do expect a lower FG than you expected - sugar adds alcohol but no body. You haven't ruined your beer, you've just made one you didn't anticipate! As far as the slow fermentation, if you didn't make a starter it will go slowly in a beer this big. I didn't hear you mention aeration, either, another factor in a slow fermentation. Give the yeast its time and it will finish its job. RDWHAHB.
 
I promised I would update all the people that helped me with my original thread. So, here we go.
After lots of thought I agreed with Thurston and Head First. I split the difference and continued the batch adding a few liters of water and stirring it up to reactivate the yeast. On October 30th the SG/FG was stable at 1.012. I bottled and waited. The final product has a mid-level SRM, mild bitterness with little aroma. The taste is VERY sweet that leaves a mild dry feeling. The est. ABV is ridiculously high at approx. 8.4%.
In short, it is a successful beer. Thank you all for your help. But, it is certainly not something I will tell my friends about. It is good enough to keep me company through dry times while better experiments unfold. I learned not to give up even if the presumption of guilt slants to the ugly side.
On the other hand, I've started experimenting with yeast starters. I made a Pumpkin Ale that has seriously convinced me I have a gift for embarrassing my wife at how much beer an Irishman can drink on a daily basis. LOL!
Thanks again.....I think. :)
 
just a bit late sorry and didn't throughly read above but A high attenuating beer is one that is super dry and a low attenuated beer is one that has a lot of residual sweetness, it can be high alcohol or not it doesn't matter but the higher the alcohol and lower attenuated yeast will seem odd to the novice, it never made since to me in the beginning but its in fact sweet
 
just a bit late sorry and didn't throughly read above but A high attenuating beer is one that is super dry and a low attenuated beer is one that has a lot of residual sweetness, it can be high alcohol or not it doesn't matter but the higher the alcohol and lower attenuated yeast will seem odd to the novice, it never made since to me in the beginning but its in fact sweet
Hello Mr. Ozark,
Your remarks make me hungry to bite the cookie but as a noob, I'm having a hard time digesting. It seems to me you're mentioning three opposing/contributing issues, attenuation, ABV and sweetness. I appreciate your advice and would like to understand better what you mean. Could you embellish a bit further?
Thank you for your time.
 
The taste is VERY sweet that leaves a mild dry feeling. The est. ABV is ridiculously high at approx. 8.4%.

this is what I'm talking about and whats happened is the grain gave you enough alcohol but the yeast did not perform as expected so they didn't eat all the sugar leaving you a sweet but high alcohol beer

edit: and in higher alcohol beers this can be normal unless you pick a yeast that will allow that much alcohol
 
ABV is purely the alcohol content

Attenuation is how much of the sugar the yeast are able to eat

Sweetness comes back to which sugars are in the wort , not all are able to be fermented with brewers yeast

A low attenuated beer will have a sweeter taste and lower ABV
Different mash schedules can effect this as will which variety of yeast is used
 
All I can say is this brew would probably turn out a little thin on the mouthfeel side of things coming from all the dextrose ?:)
 
Wouldn't be surprised if there was a little alcohol heat in a beer that big as well .
we all make mistakes in brewing ....some of mine even turn out tasty !

Gorm said he diluted the brew as well , that will reduce the body /colour/ IBUs and ABV all at once
can't remember last time i used dex in a brew
purely for coffee and bottle priming at my place
 
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Seems curious that FG got all the way down to 1.012 but it's still really sweet... If the yeast ate all the dextrose but couldn't handle more complex sugars from the mash, I'd expect a higher gravity.

But then, what do I know?? :confused:
 
Seems curious that FG got all the way down to 1.012 but it's still really sweet... If the yeast ate all the dextrose but couldn't handle more complex sugars from the mash, I'd expect a higher gravity.

But then, what do I know?? :confused:
My limited understanding from the information I've gleaned from across the web and through pages of brewing books yeasties have as we know alcohol tolerance maybe they simply poisoned themselves :confused: sorta like us if we drink too much of their hard earned product:rolleyes:.
 

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