Having doubts about my first stout

Question

Having doubts about my first stout

Gabriel

2019年11月18日 23:14

I just had an issue with an oatmeal stout. I'm just starting to brew beer at home (BIAB) and I think I made some mistakes.

I had my water at 80°C hoping for the decrease of temperature to 72°C when adding my grains. So I just kept at it not knowing this was a problem. So my OG was at 1.070, recipe indicated it should be at 1.068. Then I put the beer in the fermenter and after 7 days the gravity dropped to 1.031, after 6 more days gravity was still at 1.031. I added another pack of Yeast Safale S-04, swirled around hoping for yeast to activate. A week later, nothing. Gravity was still at 1.031. So I just bottled after adding some priming.

A week later, my beer is flat and has too much body. Carbonation seems to be not happening (or struggling) since the beer is too dense.

Another strange thing I experienced was my airlock sucking my sanitizer solution into the fermenter. I don't know if this may affect something in the fermentation.

I'd really appreciate some insights if you know what is happening here. Cheers!

Topic final-gravity airlock original-gravity stuck-fermentation stout homebrew

Category Mac

Kingsley · Accepted Answer · 2019年11月18日 23:14

If you achieved the target gravity, then the mash worked OK.

Due to the high temperature (producing unfermentable long-chain sugars) and the inclusion of the oatmeal - which contains a lot of unfermentable starches (and that's why we use it), you would be expecting a high final gravity. Granted ~1.030 is about 5-10 points higher than where I'd expected that to finish, but then again, I've never mashed at 80°C, and maybe you used a lot of oats.

It often takes more than a week for carbonation, especially in a higher-alcohol beer. Just wait a couple of weeks.

JesseB1234 · Accepted Answer · 2019年11月13日 17:23

At what temperature did you eventually mashed? Not sure how it works out with BIAB, but adding grains to a regular mash (even less volume compared to BIAB), the temperature only drops a few °C's. My guess is that if you added the grains at 80°C, you mashed at around 76/77°C. This is way too high, but 72°C is also too high. Mash temps range from 62-70C°, above that results in too much unfermentable sugars and thus a high FG.

What kind of sanitizer solution got into the fermenter? Most of them do no harm to the yeast, at least not in small quantities. Give it some more time, it can take more than a week to properly carbonate.

Having doubts about my first stout

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