Possible stuck ferment on my Honey Blonde Ale

[JonGoku]

I brewed an extract Honey Blonde Ale on 5/16 and am a bit worried as my airlock is dead and my gravity is still high.

Recipe was:
7lb Ultralight LME
1/2 lb Crystal 15L
1/4 lb Honey Malt
1 lb Honey (diluted in preboiled water and added to cooled wort in fermentor)
1 oz Willamette (60min)
US-05

This kit was originally just a blonde ale, and I modified it by adding the honey malts and honey. I don't know what my target OG was supposed to be after modifying the kit, but without the honey it was supposed to be 1.045-1.050. What I ended up with was 5.25 gallons at 1.074.

My airlock was totally stopped on Thursday evening and so I swirled the carboy in hopes to get some more action going, but nothing happened. When I checked on Friday night my gravity was 1.030 and I am yet to see any further bubbling in the airlock. I was originally keeping it at around 65F and have since stopped adding ice to the water bath and temps are now at 70 but still no action. I may take another gravity reading tomorrow, but I'm wondering if my fermentation is stuck and if I should pitch another packet of US-05.

TIA

This pic was taken on day 3

[kevinham]

You have to take another reading, that is the only way to know for sure. Never trust the airlock, it is not a sign of fermentation.

If the reading is any lower than 1.030, you are good to go.

[JonGoku]

Alright, thanks. I'll check gravity again tomorrow and post an update.

[Oskaar]

While you have your hands in the mix, check the temperature and pH as well. Never hurts to be thorough.

Cheers,

Oskaar

[bwarbiany]

This is a good time to ask this question... For a stuck ferment, is there any advantage to pitching more yeast? I always figured that since the yeast have likely multiplied FAR in excess of the number of viable cells in a pack of dry, you're not really going to get any advantage... Is this accurate?

[JonGoku]

This is a good time to ask this question... For a stuck ferment, is there any advantage to pitching more yeast? I always figured that since the yeast have likely multiplied FAR in excess of the number of viable cells in a pack of dry, you're not really going to get any advantage... Is this accurate?

Sorry, I'm being lazy and haven't taken my reading today yet, but presuming it is stuck and going along with the above question, what if you made a starter and pitched at it's high krausen? Or is that essentially the same thing? Is there a difference between "lots of yeast" and "actively multiplying yeast"?

[JonGoku]

Alright, I checked the gravity and it was at 1.020 (OG was 1.074). Apparently my airlock lies and it's not a stuck ferment. I will check it again tomorrow evening to see if it's still moving, however if it's not, do you think I could swirl it again to get a few more points to drop off? Or is swirling the trub/yeast cake on the primary really not that recommend due to other side effects (of which I'm not sure of, but assume there might be).

[JonGoku]

I did not know they made carboy hoods in hot pink Jon!!



Cheers!

Hahaha, it really looks pink doesn't it? It actually is orange, but pink would be neat too as I think SWMBO would approve.

[BrewMasterBrad]

A gentle swirl to get yeast back in suspension is not going to hurt anything.

[JonGoku]

I checked the ferment and gave it another gentle swirl last night. The gravity had dropped another point down to 1.019, but then that got me thinking, how do you know what the final gravity should be?

I downloaded promash and tried using it for the first time the other night to figure that out and came away a bit confused.
1) Entering in the recipe mentioned earlier in this thread didn't yield me the SG I got, in fact it was 10 points off. Could I somehow have gotten outstanding efficiency on the steeped grains? Doubtful.
2) There wasn't any Crystal 15L so I had to chose the Crystal 10L and up the color value to 15L.
3) There weren't any pellet hops to choose from so I had to chose whole. (no clue how to adjust for that)
4) And ultimately what I was trying to find, an estimated FG was not there, any tips?

[lexuschris]

Hey Jon,

Good to hear that the gravity continues to drop.... that's gotta be a good sign right?

I just recently downloaded BeerSmith and have been using it for a few weeks now (has 21 day free trial..btw). Did not spend much time on other software, as this one seemed to meet my needs and covers the areas you mentioned above. I just put your recipe into BeerSmith and came up with the estimaged SG of 1.058 and a FG of 1.015... hope that helps.

(here is a size reduced shot of the beersmith detail window...I cropped out the rest)

Jon's Blonde Honey Ale recipe in BeerSmith

beersmith_honeyblonde.gif (30.88 KiB) Viewed 2958 times

--LexusChris

[lexuschris]

another thought..

I seem to remember from my tries at brewing meads ... honey raises the OG quickly, and it also raises the final gravity quite a bit. So, if your OG was really at 1.074 .. you may be done. Also, perhaps you had either more honey or malt in the brew, or your final volume is lower than 5.25 gallons.... ?

... I defer to others for clarifying (and correcting) that thought ...
--LexusChris

[JonGoku]

That's awesome Chris. Thanks for doing that.

So, with Promash the expected SG is 1.064, with BeerSmith it's 1.058, but what I actually got was 1.074. I'm thinking the honey might be to blame as well since I think their gravity varies pretty easily, but more then likely it was a little bit of everything since when I played with the gravity of any once ingredient it was not able to bump up the OG to 1.074 on it's own. The honey I used was only regular clover honey Trader Joe's brand. Pete suggested I go with something with a little more interesting of a flavor profile, but that's all I had on hand so I went with that.

Anyways, I haven't messed with beersmith yet so maybe I should give it a go. Another gripe about promash is that the yeast US-05 is not an option. Go figure, maybe it's just due for a needed update.

[BrewMasterBrad]

The US-05 yeast is probably still listed as US-56 in Promash. We, along with other forums, have discussed the merits of ProMash vs. BeerSmith. What it essentially boils down to is user preference. I have both programs, but I use BeerSmith almost exclusively now. I find it does more of what I want it to do without having to RTFM. BeerSmith also works with BeerXML files and allows for easy export to HTML.

[JonGoku]

The US-05 yeast is probably still listed as US-56 in Promash. We, along with other forums, have discussed the merits of ProMash vs. BeerSmith. What it essentially boils down to is user preference. I have both programs, but I use BeerSmith almost exclusively now. I find it does more of what I want it to do without having to RTFM. BeerSmith also works with BeerXML files and allows for easy export to HTML.

Good thought, but I checked and I don't see US-56 either. Here is the extent of their dry yeast options.


Thanks for your opinion. I will definitely have to check out beersmith, but I think I will hold off till I get closer to starting AG so I can maximize my trial period.