using kroisen to fix stalled ferment

[ceveceriaelmotin]

I am a homebrewer striving to be a nanobrewer in Margarita Island Venezuela. I do not have access to liquid yeast and can only use dry yeast (for now) and no ambitions of smuggling liquid yeast in the prison wallet to get it here hahaha Plus I can only bring brewing supplies little by little and I am literally brewing in one of the most difficult places to brew in the world because there are shortages of many basic goods. Thus any solution must begin with basic stuff you can buy at hardware store without resorting to just going to LHBS. Got to do most EVERYTHING from scratch...seriously, the gas pressure here sucks so I literally had to make a WW1 style flamethrower to get my 60lts to a boil. Thus any solution must come from the bare basics.

I am presently having problems with ATTENUATION in most all my beers now, except for my wheat beers. Robust Oatmeal Porter OG 1.071 SG 1.040 (brewed 11/24/14), Double IPA OG 1.075 SG 1.030 (brewed 12/2/14), ESB OG 1.062, 1.035 (brewed 12/5/14).

Of course, I could brew whimpy beers, but life begins at 1.070!!

So the long term solution I believe is to wash and repitch my own crappy dry yeast and hope that subsequent generations are better adapted. I built a large fermentation chamber and the temperature holds between 68-70 degrees, so temp is not as big of a problem. Sanitation could be an issue because I am stuck using crappy bleach till I get PBW on next pallet of grain.

The short term problem I need to solve is to fix these beers so I can drink them

I am brewing tomorrow a lower gravity IPA. I only have 20lts (5gallon) glass carboys as fermenters (until i get more franke kegs as fermenters) so very little headspace. I was thinking of using the blowoff from the beer I am brewing tomorrow directly into the IPA stuck at 1.030. It is the same safeale 05, similar grain bill and hops schedule. I dont know if this is the case, but can it be that excessive blowoff leads to lower attenuation.

But immediately, I would like to know if the kroisen from the blowoff (and stir the kroisen in with a sanitary stir stick) could take this IPA down to at least 1.025 or lower??? And will an IPA suck and taste more like a bitter at that gravity??

Secondly, for the robust porter, I was thinking of moving it to a secondary fermenter and the wash the yeast cake with sanitary water. Let it settle. Pour into mason jars. Let it settle. Then take mason jars and mix with sanitary low gravity wort to bring to high kroisen and then repitch yeast into robust porter.

I really appreciate all your input!!! Cheers- Frank

[BDawg]

Frank-
First, welcome to the site.

How are you aerating? US-05 is a pretty good attenuator, and it should be taking these beers down much further than the gravities that you are listing. You will want to use pure Oxygen to aerate. Those large volumes of wort won't aerate very effectively if you are just shaking it.

Are you using any yeast nutrient? You can add a package of dried yeast to the boil (yes, I said to the boil) if you don't have access to any.

Perhaps the excessive blowoff you are experiencing is reducing the cell count to the point that the yeast give up?
Try using an additional fermenter and leaving more head space in each fermenter so that fewer cells are lost.

I would not mix the blowoff of a robust porter in as new yeast to the IPA. It will change the color and there's no good way to keep the blowoff yeast clean. However, you can make a small starter and pitch it into your IPA to help lower the gravity.

Washing the yeast is a good idea and will help.

[ceveceriaelmotin]

Yo Bdawg! Thanks a ton!! Please help bring the craft beer revolution to Venezuela because the beer sucks here, yet a growing movement of brewers here!!

Yes, I will need to find a way to aerate the wort. Shaking dont do no good and is dangerous when drunk haha

No yeast nutrient for sale here. However this is something I can bring over on next pallet. Anytime I need something here I immediately have to google up ¨substitute¨...¨yeast nutrient substitute¨ But that is something I definately need.

I do have a real nice German Franke keg I can use as a fermenter for 40l of beer and will give me 10l of headspace. But I got to get the top off first.

Yeah, I am brewing an IPA tomorrow with similar grainbill and hop schedule and same yeast, safeale 05. That is what I will blowoff into the stuck IPA.

The porter I am going to transfer to secondary, wash yeast, let settle, transfer to mason jars, let settle. Make sanitary starter of 1.020 wort from 2row (no DME here either!!!!!!! brewing hell!!!!). Bring to full kroisen and then pitch back into the secondary. The porter smells awesome, looks awesome, but that 1.040 aint no good.

I think until I do eventually have aeration and nutrient I am stuck making session beers life begins at 1.070.

Perhaps harvesting the dry yeast, making starters and increasing the yeast count can help too.

I am still not at the stage of selling beer, I have about half a ton of grain left and I am not afraid to make mistakes and learn from the mistakes I make. But dry yeast sucks!!!

Thanks for all your help!! Cheers-f

[brewinhard]

Another thing to recheck is to make sure you have properly calibrated your mash thermometer. As Bdawg stated you should be getting better attenuation with US-05 even with minimal aeration. Try double checking your mash thermometer and see how accurate it is. That could be a simple fix. If you try the krausening method with no luck in gravity reduction, then you might want to check your thermometer for proper calibration.

[BDawg]

At a minimum, get an aquarium pump and concentrate on improving your aeration. You should also use a pressure cooker so you can make a batch of starter wort then save it with no fear of botulism. THat way, you can make several jars of starter wort at one time, and save them for later batches.

[biertourist]

I have to agree with quite a few items mentioned here:

1. You definitely need to aerate somehow; I agree with going to an aquarium store and getting an acquarium air pump and hooking it up to an aeration stone. -If you put it into a stainless / brass (non-lead) "T" fitting you should be able to aerate inline as beer is transferred to the fermenter.

2. Just your yeast issues alone (unless you're really getting almost no aeration) don't account for your CRAZY high FG. I'd agree with checking your mash temps; they sound like they're getting too high given the crazy FG.

3. A 5 gallon carboy for a 5 gallon batch is just too small; you CAN repitch the krausen to keep the yeast population up, but know that you're introducing a major infection risk that way if it gets exposed to open air. You need bigger fermenters, for sure. Most commercial fermenters have a 30% headspace. You can use "Fermcap S" to prevent foaming during fermentation, too.

4. You need some good sanitary practices for reusing your yeast; look into actual yeast washing (not what home brewers call yeast washing, which is just "rinsing" yeast). -Every 5 to 10 generations (depending upon how sanitary / unsanitary your harvest / transfer techniques are) you will want to either acid wash the yeast with a combination of nitric and phosphoric acid (look up the process but you hold a pH of 2.2 for a while) -the traditional acid washing hurts the yeast considerably, though and chlorine dioxide washing is much better on the yeast. http://www.brewingscience.com/yeast_care.htm
-See if you can find a local source for chlorine dioxide as you can really keep repitching the same yeast forever if you get a reliable source and process for chlorine dioxide washing.


Good luck!

Adam

[biertourist]

At a minimum, get an aquarium pump and concentrate on improving your aeration.

You should also use a pressure cooker so you can make a batch of starter wort then save it with no fear of botulism. THat way, you can make several jars of starter wort at one time, and save them for later batches.

BDawg is a smart man. Listen to him on both points.

The pressure cooker + some canning jars is a GREAT idea especially as you're having to make all-grain starters.

-You can dedicate an entire 5 gallon batch -or just a 2 1/2 gallon batch to starter wort -just put it into canning jars and seal the lid and then you have your own starter liquid ready to go and stored on a shelf ready for use whenever you need it!


Adam