Beer Volcano
Brewer
- Joined
- Nov 21, 2017
- Messages
- 41
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I'm fermenting a Belgian dark strong ale and when I looked at some of the flavor profiles of the many yeasts to choose from, WY1388 sounded like just what I wanted out of the beer, so I went with it and ordered it. The fermentation all looked fairly normal, just not all that vigorous, but no biggie. It was fairly steady with the pace and then the pace slowed down and after a couple of weeks it looked like it had "finished" primary since it was only bubbling about once every 25 seconds or so. So, I checked the gravity and it was 1.042. WTF?
Ok, the WYeast website says this yeast has a bad habit of stalling around 1.035 and that if it happens, to rack it or aerate it and that will encourage it to finish fermentation. Not a big deal, so I aerated it with my aquarium pump and stone for a second time and also added a tsp of Fermax yeast nutrient. That has to do it, right? Well, the next day it looked like it was going to get started again. There was some more foam on top (not from aearation) and the bubbles were coming about every 15 seconds. Hey, it must have worked, but it's still so slow.
That was 4 days ago and it's still bubbling about once every 12-13 seconds. So, I check the gravity. Unreal. It's 1.042. WTF?
I've never had a beer act like this before. It seems like the yeast is going to just keep fermenting forever at a very slow pace and maybe one day this beer will finish, but I'm not about to wait for months for this thing to finish. BTW, it's been at 70-72 F this whole time.
Does anyone have any experience with this yeast? If so what did you do to make it happy and finish the job?
I'm about to just go get another yeast and see if it can finish the fermentation because this is getting ridiculous.
Ok, the WYeast website says this yeast has a bad habit of stalling around 1.035 and that if it happens, to rack it or aerate it and that will encourage it to finish fermentation. Not a big deal, so I aerated it with my aquarium pump and stone for a second time and also added a tsp of Fermax yeast nutrient. That has to do it, right? Well, the next day it looked like it was going to get started again. There was some more foam on top (not from aearation) and the bubbles were coming about every 15 seconds. Hey, it must have worked, but it's still so slow.
That was 4 days ago and it's still bubbling about once every 12-13 seconds. So, I check the gravity. Unreal. It's 1.042. WTF?
I've never had a beer act like this before. It seems like the yeast is going to just keep fermenting forever at a very slow pace and maybe one day this beer will finish, but I'm not about to wait for months for this thing to finish. BTW, it's been at 70-72 F this whole time.
Does anyone have any experience with this yeast? If so what did you do to make it happy and finish the job?
I'm about to just go get another yeast and see if it can finish the fermentation because this is getting ridiculous.