I got some S@%t for you

Josh Hughes

Josh Hughes

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So I got something for you all. I brewed a Bitter Saturday. Pretty normal brew day except some bad math led to more wort than needed resulting in a higher OG. I boiled some water and dissolved some extra brown sugar, I was going to add per my recipe anyway, just added more. I saved half a liter of good imperial pub slurry. OG 1.033 it should be a nice low alcohol English pub beer. Pitched yeast about 4 pm Saturday. I made sure my tilt read 1.000 in water before dropping in. All measurements per tilt.

Fermentation started in a few hours and chewed wort pretty much as expected. As of 11am Sunday it was 1.012. Fast but not too fast considering 68-70 degrees and a healthy pitch of yeast from 12 days earlier that only left brewing conditions for about 2 hours. Around 1 pm gravity read 1.008, finished where I expected and I had about 12 psi built up mall is well. Then it read 1.005. Not that crazy as a 1.033:beer with 8% sugar will ferment down.

BUT….gravity continued to drop. This morning 0.098. Pressure went up as well but that’s not completely out of the ordinary.

So a few options. Infection is the easy one. Would it ferment that low that quick? We are at 40 hours since yeast pitch. Is my tilt screwed up? It is in a fermzilla so getting a gravity reading right now is not possible. I thought about pressure transferring it to a keg. You should still have enough yeast and suspension to finish anything up and clean up. And then I could at least get a smell and possibly a taste but it’s only been two days so the taste isn’t gonna be what I would expect to finish beer to taste like anyway.

I am not a believer that any instrument is hundred percent especially one that that’s affected by a lot of variables like a tilt. But for OG and the process of fermentation has been pretty good to me. I’m not a scientist, I don’t sell my beer so I don’t care if the numbers are off slightly I can get a good prediction by using the tilt and the software.
 
That is weird. I'll let others comment on that. I have a Fermonster, so I can see is anything is yucky in mine. I'm the silly one on here. I ferment by time and how it looks.
Do you think the slurry was infected?
Normal yeast taking off right away with a good pitch should be fine .098 outside of a Seltzer yeast or Saison would scare me though. If it is going to smell, it probably already does.
 
Low ABV and big, healthy slurry pitch? Perfect forumula for really low attenuation.
If it's TILT and you have active fermentation, pressure and carbonation, I would wait for the opportunity to get a hydro reading before resorting to any hand-wringing. :)
 
As you often said to others, don't sweat it (good advice BTW). If there is trub stuck to the tilt I would assume its reading a bit low. I would wait until you think it's done and take the gravity reading with either a hydrometer or with a refractometer corrected for alcohol. I can't tell you how many times I was convinced the beer was wrecked and later discovered it was totally fine.

Brew on!
 
Sandy Feet said:
That is weird. I'll let others comment on that. I have a Fermonster, so I can see is anything is yucky in mine. I'm the silly one on here. I ferment by time and how it looks.
Do you think the slurry was infected?
Normal yeast taking off right away with a good pitch should be fine .098 outside of a Seltzer yeast or Saison would scare me though. If it is going to smell, it probably already does.
Click to expand...
Fermzill is a clear as well. Slurry shouldn’t have been infected. The brown ale I was drinking that day was just racked of of it the previous day under pressure. Only exposure what pouring it out into a sanitized gallon jug a few hours before racking into the fermenter. But anything else s possible
 
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Josh Hughes said:
So I got something for you all. I brewed a Bitter Saturday. Pretty normal brew day except some bad math led to more wort than needed resulting in a higher OG. I boiled some water and dissolved some extra brown sugar, I was going to add per my recipe anyway, just added more. I saved half a liter of good imperial pub slurry. OG 1.033 it should be a nice low alcohol English pub beer. Pitched yeast about 4 pm Saturday. I made sure my tilt read 1.000 in water before dropping in. All measurements per tilt.

Fermentation started in a few hours and chewed wort pretty much as expected. As of 11am Sunday it was 1.012. Fast but not too fast considering 68-70 degrees and a healthy pitch of yeast from 12 days earlier that only left brewing conditions for about 2 hours. Around 1 pm gravity read 1.008, finished where I expected and I had about 12 psi built up mall is well. Then it read 1.005. Not that crazy as a 1.033:beer with 8% sugar will ferment down.

BUT….gravity continued to drop. This morning 0.098. Pressure went up as well but that’s not completely out of the ordinary.

So a few options. Infection is the easy one. Would it ferment that low that quick? We are at 40 hours since yeast pitch. Is my tilt screwed up? It is in a fermzilla so getting a gravity reading right now is not possible. I thought about pressure transferring it to a keg. You should still have enough yeast and suspension to finish anything up and clean up. And then I could at least get a smell and possibly a taste but it’s only been two days so the taste isn’t gonna be what I would expect to finish beer to taste like anyway.

I am not a believer that any instrument is hundred percent especially one that that’s affected by a lot of variables like a tilt. But for OG and the process of fermentation has been pretty good to me. I’m not a scientist, I don’t sell my beer so I don’t care if the numbers are off slightly I can get a good prediction by using the tilt and the software.
Click to expand...
Don’t trust the Tilt. That’s the easy one.
 
J A said:
Low ABV and big, healthy slurry pitch? Perfect forumula for really low attenuation.
If it's TILT and you have active fermentation, pressure and carbonation, I would wait for the opportunity to get a hydro reading before resorting to any hand-wringing. :)
Click to expand...
Donoroto said:
Don’t trust the Tilt. That’s the easy one.
Click to expand...

are y'all coordinating on a long anti-technology manifesto? :)

1767043235393.png

Just remember that if you backstop the tilt gravity reading with a hydrometer, make sure your wort is at the hydrometer calibrated temperature!
Short story long:

My porter brew went just a little sideways; I missed the mark on the mash, which has bitten me before. I thought I lowered my efficiency enough but was a few percentage points off. No worries though, I brew with overhead beer, so I can elongate the boil to use up some of my overhead.
A little quick math and I figure 20-25 minutes gets me to my expected pre-boil gravity of 1.044. Sure enough, 25m later, I have it and I start the hop schedule. I get one last refractometer reading before transfer and show way under my expected SG. Post transfer, I pitch the tilt and wait impatiently.
I'm expecting about 1.059-1.061.

Tilt says: 1.071.
Jayzus!
Volume looks to be about 6 gallons, so I used almost all my overhead in this batch 'rescuing' the effort from my unanticipated lost efficiency. Or so I thought.

I channeled my inner @J A & @Donoroto, pulled my old school hydrometer out of storage and grabbed a sample. 1.062
AHA! That's it, the tilt is ... wait, this wort is 88F, 20F higher than tilt calibration. Into the fridge and wait impatiently. 10 minutes or so later, 1.068. Another 5 minutes, 1.070... hmm. maybe the tilt isn't wrong after all.

I may need to look at my refractometer though.

Josh: that yeast you pitched was slurry from a previous fermentation right?
If so, you probably way overpitched. Generation / fermentation 2 through ~ 6 are generally stronger than the first pitch, and trail off after that for normal strength beer. If you pitched a Tripel or wheat wine, you probably get fewer but there is still a healthier culture.

So you had a relatively low alcohol or 'small' beer, a 'big' yeast pitch, and adjuncts? at ~1.0 I think the 'clean up' is done.
 
My last batch, Tilt 1.005. Hydrometer 1.014
I don't usually double check with hydrometer but I was curious.
 
Dave Y said:
are y'all coordinating on a long anti-technology manifesto? :)
Click to expand...
Every duplicable act of creative impulse is technology!! :D :D
Digital technology? Well... I don't want to piss off the AI overlords. :p:D
I figure like this...
Hydrometer during mash to track rate of conversion...
Tilt for tracking changes during fermentation...
Hydrometer (sample at proper temp) for any measurement of record - pre-boil gravity, fermenter OG, FG...
Trust but verify! :)
 
HighVoltageMan! said:
As you often said to others, don't sweat it (good advice BTW). If there is trub stuck to the tilt I would assume its reading a bit low. I would wait until you think it's done and take the gravity reading with either a hydrometer or with a refractometer corrected for alcohol. I can't tell you how many times I was convinced the beer was wrecked and later discovered it was totally fine.

Brew on!
Click to expand...
Same here, get a reading from a hydrometer before you panic. If it really is that low, i would be cautious
 
not sure why you say you cant get a sample from the fermzilla, don't you have a picnic tap on it?
 
I can but would blow it all over the place. It’s sitting st 24 psi at 66 degrees
 
Josh Hughes said:
It will be ready to drink when Kegged. Spunding at the end of fermentation.
Click to expand...
are you fermenting at that pressure ? I was just reading a BYO article by John Blichman and he says best results 10-15 Psi. that's where I keep the pressure set throughout the fermentation and its a good carbonation level for serving. Maybe you ferment at a low pressure and just force carbonate at the 24psi

https://byo.com/articles/fermenting-under-pressure/
 
Brew Cat said:
are you fermenting at that pressure ? I was just reading a BYO article by John Blichman and he says best results 10-15 Psi. that's where I keep the pressure set throughout the fermentation and its a good carbonation level for serving. Maybe you ferment at a low pressure and just force carbonate at the 24psi

https://byo.com/articles/fermenting-under-pressure/
Click to expand...
Not fermenting under pressure. I just cap off at the end to get the psi needed per temp using the calculator on here. Lagers I will depending on time of of year and temperature. Not ales though.
 
Brew Cat said:
24psi ? I don't understand that
Click to expand...
The equivalent volumes of 24PSI at 66F is the same as around 8 PSI at 36 - around 2.3 volumes. Right in the typical range for most beers.
I cap off when I'm somewhere between 5 and 10 points away from FG, depending on the beer and where I'm at in the schedule and what's convenient. I don't have spunding valves and my PRVs on my tanks top out at about 20 PSI so sometimes I'll add pressure as I drop temp for crashing to get a decent carb level when I transfer.
 
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