Guinness clone with a twist

[JVi]

I am extremely thankful all this help!

 

[Sandy Feet]

Not sure about your neck of the woods, but a plastic Fermonster here is about $30US. It is light in weight, you can see the fermentation, and it is cheap.
Kind of hard to tell a bunch of things over the internet, but at least you have ideas. The guys and girls here are great.
154 F fermenting a Stout is good. I guess I was lazy with my metric conversion.
I played around with Safale S-04 in the beginning. Later, I found White Labs WLP004 gives a great yeast character to an English/Irish style beer. That is why I am a fan of Guinness strain liquid yeast.

 

[JVi]

Not sure about your neck of the woods, but a plastic Fermonster here is about $30US. It is light in weight, you can see the fermentation, and it is cheap.
Kind of hard to tell a bunch of things over the internet, but at least you have ideas. The guys and girls here are great.
154 F fermenting a Stout is good. I guess I was lazy with my metric conversion.
I played around with Safale S-04 in the beginning. Later, I found White Labs WLP004 gives a great yeast character to an English/Irish style beer. That is why I am a fan of Guinness strain liquid yeast.

23l with spigot goes about 55€ here, so little over 60$US, it wont kill me, but it is shit loads for plastic that is why i have turned my eyes for stainless steel. Only good thing with plastic(pet) is that it is light and see through.

 

[Dave Y]

Yeast expiration day was ok, stored properly, i think/hope so, here it was in freezer but it was few days outside freezer, actually 5 days. I have no idea how fast these vacuum packed dry yeast go bad without freezer(under +4 said pack)

Cleaned and sanitized, Yes and Yes with PBW and STAR SAN, but there is always possibility for something. I hate those plastic buckets. With wine and moonshine mash those are just fine. Stainless Steel one is in my shopping list, just kind of expensive those.

dry yeast should last a long time frozen. That said, I've seen where some advocate for "reactivating" it after freezing. Anyone got any insight on that?
This fits my preferred narrative for why you didn't get a full, robust fermentation but I'll reserve judgment.

 

[JVi]

dry yeast should last a long time frozen. That said, I've seen where some advocate for "reactivating" it after freezing. Anyone got any insight on that?
This fits my preferred narrative for why you didn't get a full, robust fermentation but I'll reserve judgment.

If anyone has some knowledge/experience about this yeast thing, for future it is good to know. I live in smaller town even on our scale so i have to order all materials and even if i pick everything immediately after arrival these materials travel 2-3 days.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

28/10 yeast pitched. it worked actively 2 days at 17-19 temp, then someone(kids maybe) cut power from my heating element and temp dropped hard. Friday i noticed that, after saturday morning no bubbles.

How large was the temperature drop and how low did it go? A significant temperature drop over a short period of time, or temps below the recommended temp, could stress the yeast or make them go dormant. So, as @Donoroto suggested, warm it up and see what happens.

Food tar sounds like an interesting ingredient; especially in a stout.

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

I guess your "tar" or "terva" isn't an ingrediant that would have any negative impact on your beer. I would recommend removing variables though, and keeping it simple.
View attachment 33472

My favorite line is after that part where it mentions an old Finnish proverb that states "If sauna, vodka and tar won't help, the disease is fatal."

 

[JVi]

How large was the temperature drop and how low did it go? A significant temperature drop over a short period of time, or temps below the recommended temp, could stress the yeast or make them go dormant. So, as @Donoroto suggested, warm it up and see what happens.

Food tar sounds like an interesting ingredient; especially in a stout.

Can´t say sure how long, my estimation is between 16-24h and when i started my heating element temp was 12 C, originally fermenting temp was between 17-19(i lack right equipment for better control). This 12 is low end of fermentation range for this yeast(10-22 C)
First i took temp to 20.5 and yesterday i took it to 22.

 

[JVi]

My favorite line is after that part where it mentions an old Finnish proverb that states "If sauna, vodka and tar won't help, the disease is fatal."

Old saying and still in use

 

[Donoroto]

Old saying and still in use

Makes perfect sense to me.

 

[Craigerrr]

I question freezing dry yeast. It keeps for ages in the fridge, never occurred to me to freeze it, is that even a good thing to do?

 

[JVi]

I question freezing dry yeast. It keeps for ages in the fridge, never occurred to me to freeze it, is that even a good thing to do?

Sorry error on my end i kept those in fridge but it won´t go as low as +4 and under(i checked +5 when empty). One video relating Lallemand yeast said(i re-watched it) that yeast are cold stored, so it doesn´t say freezed either. Seems that just above freezing is optimal storing temperature +1 to 4 C.

Still don´t know if those five days(with post) outside that temp has harmed yeast somehow.

 

[Craigerrr]

Sorry error on my end i kept those in fridge but it won´t go as low as +4 and under(i checked +5 when empty). One video relating Lallemand yeast said(i re-watched it) that yeast are cold stored, so it doesn´t say freezed either. Seems that just above freezing is optimal storing temperature +1 to 4 C.

Still don´t know if those five days(with post) outside that temp has harmed yeast somehow.

I would say once your gravity is stable for 3 days go ahead and bottle it

 

[JVi]

I would say once your gravity is stable for 3 days go ahead and bottle it

No changes in numbers, probably friday is bottling day.
Taste is not that bad actually, lot of things are there what i hoped. Only alcohol is missing

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Can´t say sure how long, my estimation is between 16-24h and when i started my heating element temp was 12 C, originally fermenting temp was between 17-19(i lack right equipment for better control). This 12 is low end of fermentation range for this yeast(10-22 C)
First i took temp to 20.5 and yesterday i took it to 22.

5-7°C drop in less than a day may have caused the yeast to stall out. But, if that were the case then I would have expected the 2nd yeast pack would have finished up the fermentation.

Since you have a stable gravity, bottling Friday sounds like a good plan.

 

[J A]

No changes in numbers, probably friday is bottling day.
Taste is not that bad actually, lot of things are there what i hoped. Only alcohol is missing

You can boost the alcohol with a little clean vodka. A little less than a half liter of 80 proof alcohol in a 5-gallon keg will raise the ABV by about 1%. I've done this with beers that were a little too sweet and heavy and it can really improve the balance. You have to add it in such a way that it can be mixed well. In a keg it's easy because you can move the sealed keg around to stir it up. In a fermenter you wouldn't want to stir it up but if you're transferring to a bottling bucket, you can easily add the vodka to the bucket first with your priming sugar solution.

I'll be very interested to hear whether you have bottle bombs with this batch.

 

[JVi]

You can boost the alcohol with a little clean vodka. A little less than a half liter of 80 proof alcohol in a 5-gallon keg will raise the ABV by about 1%. I've done this with beers that were a little too sweet and heavy and it can really improve the balance. You have to add it in such a way that it can be mixed well. In a keg it's easy because you can move the sealed keg around to stir it up. In a fermenter you wouldn't want to stir it up but if you're transferring to a bottling bucket, you can easily add the vodka to the bucket first with your priming sugar solution.

I'll be very interested to hear whether you have bottle bombs with this batch.

You will hear if i do have or don´t have. I really hope not! thinking of switching from glass to plastic bottles, hurt less at impact

 

[JVi]

5-7°C drop in less than a day may have caused the yeast to stall out. But, if that were the case then I would have expected the 2nd yeast pack would have finished up the fermentation.

Since you have a stable gravity, bottling Friday sounds like a good plan.

That is one possible reason but I think there is also something else wrong, maybe some kind contamination although i cleaned and sanitized all.
My PID have been messing with me and i reset it earlier, i was thinking that if my mashing temp was off although numbers showed 68C, i haven´t cross measured it, need to do that.
Would OG be ok, if that mash temp was too high?

 

[Donoroto]

That is one possible reason but I think there is also something else wrong, maybe some kind contamination although i cleaned and sanitized all.
My PID have been messing with me and i reset it earlier, i was thinking that if my mashing temp was off although numbers showed 68C, i haven´t cross measured it, need to do that.
Would OG be ok, if that mash temp was too high?

I think that OG is somewhat insensitive to mash temperature, but I may be wrong. Let’s hear from others first.

 

[JVi]

Little update.
I cross measured and checked my sensor correction numbers today. Voilá numbers were of by 4-5 points, so my sensor said 68 C but real was 72-73 C, i don´t know if this has some meaning. This also means that my pitch temp wasn´t 20C but 24-25C.