Low FG - ideas?

Hi Ya'll!  This is probably my first post here, so please bear with me.    I brewed Elbro Nerkte Brown Ale from the Joy of Homebrewing book and everything went pretty well.  I used one of those smack pack yeasts, Wyeasts #1338.  The OG was as expected, 1.047.  I probably took it out of primary too soon, after a week.  I foolishly transferred into the secondary carboy before checking the gravity, which turned out to be 1.022, instead of the expected 1.014.  I decided to let it sit in secondary and see if the gravity would drop...which after a week it has not budged.  With the FG at 1.022 the ABV is 3.26 which I was hoping for a little more. 

At this point I guess my options would be:
1.  keg it and have a 3.2 beer.
2.  give it a swirl and let it sit in secondary a while longer to see if it ferments any more.
3.  pitch more yeast?

What do the homebrew experts say?
Thanks!

Jay

Racking it to a second carboy shouldn't stop your beer from continuing to ferment.  You almost certainly carried some yeast over into the new carboy.  I'd give it more time before doing anything.  If nothing happens in another week, it could be you have a stuck fermentation - did you areate the wort before pitching the yeast?  The other possibility is if you made it from grains you might have mashed at too high a temp and produces some dextrins (which are not fermentable) instead of all sucrose, glucose and maltose.  In this case you would not ferment any further.

If you're really concerned about getting the last bit of fermentation possible, buy some more of the same yeast and make a a starter - 1/2 cup dry malted extract dissolved in 2 cups of boiling water for 15 min and then cooled to 70F.  Put it in a bottle with a fermetation lock on it and give it 24 hrs - it should be ready to add to your carboy by then.  You can just dump the whole thing in or decant off the liquid and add just the yeast.

Good luck.

  At worst you'll have a slightly sweeter homebrew which is much better than BMC. Like Charlie says "Relax have a homebrew" I guess what I'm saying is if you saw the initial fermentation start off then you have beer.

Dave gave the reasons I thought of.  Not enough Oxygen in wort to start, too low of a temp in fermentation and too high of a mash temp causing unfermentable sugars.

Thanks for the ideas guys.  I brewed this as an extract recipe and steeped the grains at 168 deg.  I also used oxy to areate, about a 20 sec shot.  The fermentation was pretty good, started to see bubbles in about 8 to 10 hours.  It bubbled steady for 5 days, then was quiet.  I racked to secondary the 7th day.  I think I will just let it sit another week and keg it.  Like Shane says, relax, have a homebrew! 

Shane, I had to google BMC...and I agree with you on that.  Even my rushed brews have been better than the BMC beers. 

Dave, I intend to do a yeast starter on my next batch.  That and giving enough time in the primary fermenter should do the trick.  I will let you guys know how it turns out.

Thanks again!
Jay

  Hey Lets Brew Yall,
  I would'nt  steep my grains with so high a temp. 155 F seems to be a norm, any higher you'll start releasing tannins from the husks. Bitter taste. Not like hop bitter, like old tea bitter. I heat my water to 160 F and add my specialty grains. Usually a pound or so brings temp down to 155F in a 4 gal hot liquor bath. With no heat after an hour its still in the 150F range which is fine. I brew about half of my batches extract this way.
  good brewin

Thanks for the input Shane.  I think I actually started off at 168 when I turned the flame off...and it went down from there.  But, I will make sure to keep it under 160 to start in the future.  Do you actually do any partial mash batches or all grain?  Thats next on my list to try...

shane said:

  Hey Lets Brew Yall,
  I would'nt  steep my grains with so high a temp. 155 F seems to be a norm, any higher you'll start releasing tannins from the husks. Bitter taste. Not like hop bitter, like old tea bitter. I heat my water to 160 F and add my specialty grains. Usually a pound or so brings temp down to 155F in a 4 gal hot liquor bath. With no heat after an hour its still in the 150F range which is fine. I brew about half of my batches extract this way.
  good brewin

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A healthy pack of Wyeast 1338 attenuates between 67 and 71%.  Your attenuation is 54% based on the formula they use (OG-FG)/(OG-1)] x 100.

47-22=25
47-1=46
25/46= .54
.54*100= 54

Fermentation is critical to making beer.  Fermentation makes the beer!  Properly controlled fermentation for ales typically takes 3 - 5 days (some strains go about 20).  Transferring to a secondary is not only unnecessary, it is a risky procedure.  For typical ales, 10 days in the fermentation vessel is all that is needed.  Although the yeast are pretty much done with their work, they continue to metabolize and reduce the off flavors they create during their most active cycles.  An additional 5 to 7 days is a good amount of time for them to clean up after themselves.  A good practice is 10 days then keg or bottle. Transferring to secondary vessels is an old practice that was necessary due to the low quality of yeast.  They tended to die and rot (autolysis) souring the beer.  Today's yeast is of superior quality making secondary vessels a thing of the past (except for high gravity,lagers and aging beers much longer where you definitely want them off the yeastie boys in a secondary). 

So what happened to yours?  With limited information, we can guess.  One possibility, thou unlikely, is that the wort did not contain enough vital nutrients to maintain healthy yeast which flocculated too quickly.    Another possibility is the yeast had insufficient oxygen during the anaerobic stage.  20 seconds is rather little.  Quite typically, though is that the fermentation temperature fluctuated and likely dropped at night causing the yeast to flocculate too early.  Also, Wyeast 1338 is slower to attenuate so taking it off the yeast too soon can also leave you with a higher finishing gravity.

I would offer that the two most likely culprits are the two most common problems.  There was not enough oxygen and that you do not have temperature control for fermentation and likely experienced the yeast floccuating too early due to temps dropping.  You can try getting the beer to an appropriate fermentation temperature and adding some dry yeast.  Then maintain the temperature the next 3 - 4 days. 

Also, you should measure the time it takes for the yeast pack to rise.  It should be 4-6 hours at 70f.  If it takes longer, the yeast are likely not as healthy and you are not getting the typical ~100 billion cells.  A starter would be advised.

Thanks for all the good information Jomebrew.  I might be interested in pitching more yeast...would you stick with the original Wyeast smackpak 1338? or would it be ok to use another similar dry yeast pack?  Should I make a starter at this point?  or just pitch it?

So many questions...so little beer to drink! 

  LetsBrewYall, I actually do all three. Depending on the day and how much time I have left. On the weekend I'll allgrain usually,during the week I'll do either. I have to brew twice a week to keep up with my habit, I've had great success both ways.I'm a big fan of Alexander's Pale Malt Extract,found it locally for $12.50 a can if I buy it by the case. I also buy in bulk (northern brewers gold malt I found to be pretty good). But for a partial I would try 4lbs of Alexanders extract and 4lbs of Maris otter pale malt. So far that's given me the best results. (Ipa,s Apa,s). Got 20lbs of blueberries thrown in my lap yesterday, Made a mash out of it,split it three and made a Blueberry ale today. I think I'll call it MY BLUE HEAVEN ALE. Wort tasted promising only used 1 oz hops in boil and 1 oz in last 5 min. As a hophead it goes against my beerligion to use less than three oz .

LetsBrewYall said:

Thanks for all the good information Jomebrew.  I might be interested in pitching more yeast...would you stick with the original Wyeast smackpak 1338? or would it be ok to use another similar dry yeast pack?  Should I make a starter at this point?  or just pitch it?

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Personally, I would go with safale 04 and use 1/2 packet.

I was discussing you experience with some experienced extract brewers and they added that old extract can also be a cause.  I am not sure how you know fresh from old but they said to looks for the freshest for a number of reasons including fermentability.  Of course, the manufacturer is important and , apparently, there are some cheap extracts that churn out marginal beer.

I have good luck with dry champagne yeasts in restarting stuck fermentations  I like Lavin EC-118