No Krausen, gravity not hitting expected FG after mash water adjustment

[Vishal]

Hi all,

I’m fairly new to brewing, started about two years ago and have 20 or so batches under my belt. My last 5 batches have been all-grain BIAB batches. I really like the control over malt profile, color, and selection of speciality grains that comes with all-grain brewing. I’ve had pretty good success in terms of hitting my OG and FG based on the recipe editor calculations from BrewersFriend.

I’m always looking to improve and learn more, and recently wanted to incorporate mineral and pH adjustments. My last two batches, first a festbier and then an IPA, I added salts and adjusted mash pH according to the calculator on BF. For the first batch, I ended up too low a pH because the phosphoric acid the calculator spit out was more than what was actually required. Calculator gave 20ml of 10% acid needed and I added 10ml to the mash water before the adding the rest to take a pH measurement. pH prior to heating the mash water was about 4. I didn’t add any more acid. After grain addition, and ten minutes at 153F, pH meter gave me a pH reading of about 4.5. For the next batch, the IPA, I started with 5ml of the 10% phos acid and hit the target mash pH of 5.4. Mineral content was slightly higher for this batch since it was an IPA.

For both batches, no Krausen formed during fermentation. I have used the same yeast and similar grist profile before, have always had robust krausen, and always hit target FG (around 1.010). For both of these batches, I’m stuck at 1.020. I bottled the first batch and when I opened the bottle, a ton of foam formed (this was after about 2 weeks in the bottle and I wanted to check on it as I was curious how it was doing). For the IPA, it’s about 10 days into fermentation and it’s been stuck for 7 days at the same gravity, 1.020. The OG for this one was 1.066 and the festbier OG was 1.054. I also hit the target pre-boil gravity with 60min mash at 153 degrees F for both batches. I did 60min boil for both batches as well.

Any input here? I have fermax, and added it to the festbier without any change to gravity. I didn’t stir the yeast after adding as I didn’t want to also add oxygen. The only change to my process has been addition of salts and pH to mash water.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Trying not to make bottle bombs

Thanks!

 

[HighVoltageMan!]

I didn’t stir the yeast after adding as I didn’t want to also add oxygen.

Oxygen at or immediately after pitch is essential when using a liquid yeast. With a dry yeast it's not so important, it doesn't hurt and may help in certain circumstances. Once the yeast get to work in after day or so, that's when the oxygen needs to be kept out of the beer. Yeast are both aerobic (uses oxygen) and anaerobic (doesn't use oxygen). During the lag when the yeast getting ready to ferment, it will use oxygen (aerobic) to create and build up sterols and lipids used to reproduce. Once the oxygen is used up, the yeast will go into anaerobic metabolism. Anaerobic metabolism is what produces alcohol and carbon dioxide.

It makes a difference what type of yeast you used. Liquid yeast actually needs a good amount of oxygen to be able to produce good beer. The lack of oxygen at pitch will cause the yeast to struggle during fermentation, increase lag time, lower the vigor of fermentation, etc. Petite cells are produced with a low sterol condition and the yeast is unable to properly attenuate the beer. Dry yeast, on the other hand, already has a boat load of sterol, lipid and glycine reserves and can perform very well in low oxygenated wort.

What was the yeast? Was it re-pitched? What was the OG? What was the FG? What was the pH of the wort at pitch? What was the pitch rate? Was the wort aerated? What was the pitch temperature? What was the fermentation temperature? Was the yeast thermally shocked?

All these conditions have a bearing on how the yeast should perform. Most home brewers will do just fine without knowing exactly what these conditions are and make great beer. But when things go bad, you have to know a little more than normal in order to get to the bottom of what went wrong.

 

[Minbari]

In addition to what high voltage said. When adding acid. Do so in small increnments. Testing each add. Don't go by the the calc. Its really easy to add too much

 

[GFHomebrew]

Hi all,

I’m fairly new to brewing, started about two years ago and have 20 or so batches under my belt. My last 5 batches have been all-grain BIAB batches. I really like the control over malt profile, color, and selection of speciality grains that comes with all-grain brewing. I’ve had pretty good success in terms of hitting my OG and FG based on the recipe editor calculations from BrewersFriend.

I’m always looking to improve and learn more, and recently wanted to incorporate mineral and pH adjustments. My last two batches, first a festbier and then an IPA, I added salts and adjusted mash pH according to the calculator on BF. For the first batch, I ended up too low a pH because the phosphoric acid the calculator spit out was more than what was actually required. Calculator gave 20ml of 10% acid needed and I added 10ml to the mash water before the adding the rest to take a pH measurement. pH prior to heating the mash water was about 4. I didn’t add any more acid. After grain addition, and ten minutes at 153F, pH meter gave me a pH reading of about 4.5. For the next batch, the IPA, I started with 5ml of the 10% phos acid and hit the target mash pH of 5.4. Mineral content was slightly higher for this batch since it was an IPA.

For both batches, no Krausen formed during fermentation. I have used the same yeast and similar grist profile before, have always had robust krausen, and always hit target FG (around 1.010). For both of these batches, I’m stuck at 1.020. I bottled the first batch and when I opened the bottle, a ton of foam formed (this was after about 2 weeks in the bottle and I wanted to check on it as I was curious how it was doing). For the IPA, it’s about 10 days into fermentation and it’s been stuck for 7 days at the same gravity, 1.020. The OG for this one was 1.066 and the festbier OG was 1.054. I also hit the target pre-boil gravity with 60min mash at 153 degrees F for both batches. I did 60min boil for both batches as well.

Any input here? I have fermax, and added it to the festbier without any change to gravity. I didn’t stir the yeast after adding as I didn’t want to also add oxygen. The only change to my process has been addition of salts and pH to mash water.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Trying not to make bottle bombs

Thanks!

I'm an advocate for raise the temp a degree or two and give the fermentor a good swirl.

 

[Silver_Is_Money]

What volumes of Mash and Sparge water are involved here. And how much grist is involved?