Beer Forum

Hello all... long question here, but trying to get all the info I can in there.

I brewed 10 gallons of strong golden, split into 2 batches. The first batch fermented with the ardennes strain (3522, I think) and went down to 1.008 in a week so all good there. The second half of the batch isn't going so well... I used the 1388 strain, it stopped at 1.034 after a week and didn't move again for a full week. I got another big pitch of 1388 going and pitched that in, a week later it's dropped to 1.016 and appears to have stopped again, but that's still much too high... I really want it to dry out to around 1.006 or so. It's not a wort problem as the other half of the batch went down nice and low... both batches were also aerated the same, so I'd say not an oxygen problem.

For temperature, I've been doing what I read was recommended for these yeast strains... start pretty cool then just let it go as high as it wants. I started around 62 and it was up around 80 after a week.

Any recommendations? I'm thinking of just pitching a ton of cal ale or champagne yeast in there to see if I can drop it down the rest of the way. Just not sure if even cal ale will be able to get started in there since I'm 8% alcohol already and probably not much o2 left.

IF as yousay you have been starting at 18-20C then letting it go up to 27C, I have no idea, ( sorry dont know the temps in F)

Did you add all of the sugar during the boil or some of it once the fermentation slowed down?

When I used this strain I added sugar to the boil and the the beer took about 3-4weeks to finish. I ended up at 1.001. If I recall I fermented between 64-79 the 1st week and left it at 79 until I had the right finishing gravity(about 3wks).

bung wrote:When I used this strain I added sugar to the boil and the the beer took about 3-4weeks to finish. I ended up at 1.001. If I recall I fermented between 64-79 the 1st week and left it at 79 until I had the right finishing gravity(about 3wks).

Jeezuz thats low, did it taste ok, or was it overtly boozy?

beerpressure wrote:Did you add all of the sugar during the boil or some of it once the fermentation slowed down?

Added it all during the boil.

bung wrote:When I used this strain I added sugar to the boil and the the beer took about 3-4weeks to finish. I ended up at 1.001. If I recall I fermented between 64-79 the 1st week and left it at 79 until I had the right finishing gravity(about 3wks).

Interesting... guess I should've waited. I went 5 days without dropping another point so I pitched some champagne yeast to dry it the rest of the way. It's going well again now. Hopefully I don't taste too much from that yeast since I'm only fermenting away 10 more points or so. Thanks for the post though.

I know others here will tell you differently, but when using more than 1# of sugar I always add 1# to the boil and the remainder of the sugar in a pre-boiled solution at about day 5 or 6 in the fermentation just as it starts to slow. This allows the yeast to first eat up any maltose from the grains before giving them the desert (pounds of sugar). I have experienced stuck fermentations when adding all the sugars before (2-3#) into the boil b/c the yeast quickly consume the simpler sugars and get too tired to eat up all the maltose remaining behind leaving an underattenuated beer for the style. Just my .02$