Fermentation Finished Early

[gundog48]

My braggot and I have been having an interesting time! I started it a week ago and on the first day it foamed up big time, coming right out of the airlock. So the following morning I transferred it all to a brewing bucket with a gallon of headspace where it remained for a while.

It's been a week and I today I decided to transfer it back to a demijohn as the seal on the brewing bucket was poor and I didn't want it to oxidise. So I transferred it over, put a good bung and airlock on there... nothing. I had a close look at it and it seemed complete still- no bubbles whatsoever.

I know braggot can ferment quickly, but I'm sure this shouldn't be done yet. It tastes quite nice but is very heavy, the SG reading came out as 1.080 which must surely be too high, although I can't say I don't like the sweetness!
I'm going away on Monday and will arrive back Friday when I'll take another reading, if it hasn't changed and fermentation has indeed finished, what are my options? I could quite happily have it as is, but I'm sure it needs more! Maybe if I keep it long enough in the secondary it'll make itself right eventually!

 

[Chevette Girl]

Hey Gundog. Welcome to the forum!

We can't really tell you much without your exact recipe (like it says in the description up there) and procedures, and a starting gravity. We'll be happy to figure out what's happened (or not happened, as the case may be) once we know what you've done.

 

[gundog48]

Thanks for the kind welcome! I was working between two similar recipes. The only real difference was that one used malt extract (as I had) and the other used whole malt. The one in the book said I should use 1.5KG honey and 1.5KG malt extract for a gallon, the other said the same amounts for 5 gallons. I opted to follow the one in the book- that may have been a mistake!

I didn't have a hydrometer when I started so I can't tell you the starting gravity but it would have been rather high!

First of all I boiled up some spring water and stirred in the malt extract, then I added 7g of fuggles hops which I allowed to boil for 55 minutes. One that was done, I transferred the must to a brewing bucket and added a sliced lemon as it cooled which remained for about 30 mins. Once cool enough, I transferred the must into a demijohn and pitched the yeast. Unfortunately, there was nowhere near enough headspace and it began foaming out the airlock that night! The following morning I transferred it back to a bucket with a gallon of headspace where it stayed for a week until the foam died down. Yesterday, fearing oxidisation, I used a siphon to transfer the whole thing to a demijohn- but now I can see that nothing's happening!

 

[gundog48]

Also forgot to mention that the yeast was Lalvin 71B 1122!

 

[loveofrose]

Need some clarification on the recipe.
Are you saying you used 1.5 kg of honey and 1.5 kg of malt extract per gallon? That would be a SG of 1.245!

That can't be right unless you mean imperial gallon. Then the SG would be 1.185. If your FG is 1.08, then you are at 13.8% ABV. Pretty much 71B's limit.

 

[gundog48]

I'm afraid so! I've only just got my hydrometer to find out about specific gravity and the like! I mean, I knew it was quite a lot to dissolve! I got the recipe from a home brewing book which has been great with the other recipes I used from there. But I guess this one isn't quite right- I should really have thought that at the time, but I guess I just went with it!

What are my options at this stage? Maybe if I got a larger carboy for the secondary I could add more water?

Actually, it's a glass demijohn which are always 1 gallon (imperial I think) which is 4.5L. Thanks for pointing this out- I'll have to be sure to distinguish between the US gallon and Imperial gallon when I next do a recipe, I wasn't aware that there was a difference!

 

[Chevette Girl]

Aha, using Metric, likely not American... using the term demijohn, I'm suspecting European

An American gallon is 3.78 litres so yeah, there's a bit of a difference there. So the initial SG probably isn't quite as high as loveofrose calculated. And I've got a collection of 1 gal carboys, some are 3.78L, some are 4 litres (the Canadian gallon ) and I think I have one or two at 4.5L too. It sort of works when you end up racking off a lot of lees, just move to the smaller jug!

I think diluting the batch would probably be your best bet, if you can get another demijohn, stir it up thoroughly and split it half and half, then top up with water, you might get it to finish. Or if you really like it the way it is, accept it as a very sweet learning experience and carry on! What were your ultimate plans for this batch, was it supposed to be carbonated or still? Sweet finish or dry?

Mmm, Fuggles hops, I just got my first sniff of that kind last week and I think I'm in love! Although I steeped mine instead of boiling, since I like hoppy flavour but not bitterness.

 

[gundog48]

Yep, I'm from the UK! Over here a demijohn is the term for a 1 (imperial) gallon carboy! I never realised quite how many variations of gallon there were! I was hoping for something quite sweet, but a bit less sweet and certainly less syrupy than it is!

So I could stir up the sediment, split and top up with water and the fermentation may just kick back in on it's own accord? That'd be great, if not then I guess I'll have something of roughly the right gravity but not as strong which I can also live with, especially as I'll have twice as much!

I went into a brewing shop to get them, I'm new enough to mead making and no virtually nothing about beer brewing. I must have looked pretty clueless walking around this tiny shop packed full of stuff! I got a 100g bag of hops and used 7g- I guess I should find a use for the remainder they are really nice! I may steep next time as well, in fact, I wonder how it'd turn out if I added some hops to the secondary? May be worth an experiment!

 

[Chevette Girl]

...I was joking about the Canadian Gallon being 4 litres, it's just what I personally approximate a gallon to be since 3.78 is a dumb number to work with ;D...

Yeah, it may well just kick back in as soon as you dilute it. Deactivating yeast sometimes isn't all that hard, but killing them for good sometimes is.

 

[fatbloke]

Yep, I'm from the UK! Over here a demijohn is the term for a 1 (imperial) gallon carboy! I never realised quite how many variations of gallon there were! I was hoping for something quite sweet, but a bit less sweet and certainly less syrupy than it is!

So I could stir up the sediment, split and top up with water and the fermentation may just kick back in on it's own accord? That'd be great, if not then I guess I'll have something of roughly the right gravity but not as strong which I can also live with, especially as I'll have twice as much!

I went into a brewing shop to get them, I'm new enough to mead making and no virtually nothing about beer brewing. I must have looked pretty clueless walking around this tiny shop packed full of stuff! I got a 100g bag of hops and used 7g- I guess I should find a use for the remainder they are really nice! I may steep next time as well, in fact, I wonder how it'd turn out if I added some hops to the secondary? May be worth an experiment!

Your alluding to the term "demi-john" gave me a clue too.......

Put something in your profile, it helps no end. Especially when assistance is required and some local sources for info or supplies might be needed (local HBS are fine, but you'll see a lot of stuff mentioned here, that are easily available to US/Canada members, we have to either mail order from over there, or even here/EU to get identical or even half decent equivalents).

DJ's, if they're older ones, will be 1 imp gallon/4.55 litres, but there's some newer ones that are 5 litres capacity.

A traditional mead would have something like 1.3 to 1.6 kg of honey, so 1.5 of honey and 1.5 of malt extract would give a high as hell gravity reading. It could be safely diluted down to like a gallon and a half or 2 gallons... but anyway.......

So, if, given loveofrose's confirmation request and your following info, I'd have thought that if it is (as it seems) at 13.8% ABV but still mega sweet, then even if you managed to pitch a higher alcohol yeast and get it restarted, you'd still end up with a very sweet batch - using Bob from WaH's alcohol conversion chart, 18% ABV equates to 133 point drop, so using the 1.185 from loveofroses post, that'd still leave some 50 plus points of residual sugars....

Which is very sweet (some of the commercial meads I've tried are "dessert" meads and have FG in the region of 1.040 and damn they're cloyingly sweet to my taste).

Does that make this a disaster ? Or part of the learning curve ?

I'd go for the later.

What to do with the batch if you find it's still too sweet ?

I'd go for fortification. Let it clear some and drop a sediment, then get a litre of vodka into it.....

At 1.080, it's likely to be quite high viscosity (or lots of "body"). The vodka will increase the alcohol level, but reduce the body/viscosity as well as reduce the gravity.

I'd actually be thinking along the lines of adding enough vodka to reduce the gravity to about 1.030 - you'd still have a quite sweet batch, but it'd more likely be like an "after dinner" or dessert type drink. You may have to age it for a year or two, as the voddie would give it a rough, "spirity"/liqueur like hint/taste.

You could easily just take, say 50 mls of the brew and work out the ratio of how much vodka would increase the total volume by if adding a litre - well if you took 45mls, you'd add 10 mls of vodka if adding 1 litre of voddie to a gallon of the brew. To test the gravity in a normal hydrometer testing jar/tube you need 100mls of liquid total, but if your hydrometer came in a plastic tube with a cap on it, you can just sanitise that and use it too test the gravity and it uses less than 100mls of liquid for the test.

Plus you can take a little taste to see what the test is like and whether it's worth carrying out the full addition to the batch.

Or of course, you can leave it alone for the moment, then make a batch of dry mead (or braggot) and blend the two together .........

As I say, don't treat it as a disaster, use it as part of your learning curve......

Hell it's even got me thinking about trying it.......and the only time I've used malt so far, was to add a couple of 1lb jars of liquid malt extract to a banana mead for back sweetening, as an experiment. Banana and malt go together really, really well IMO.......

 

[gundog48]

Thanks for the help all! I went ahead with the dilution technique (before I read your helpful comment about fortification). Unfortunately, it seems to have had little effect. The SG is now 1.040 but the yeast would not restart, even after aerating. I tried pitching a new starter which was going nicely, it knocked off 5 gravity points (from 1.045 after dilution) but then stopped. I now have 2 gallons what tastes like watered down beer, although it does smell nice! Any suggestions as to how to proceed, could it be acidity?

 

[fatbloke]

Thanks for the help all! I went ahead with the dilution technique (before I read your helpful comment about fortification). Unfortunately, it seems to have had little effect. The SG is now 1.040 but the yeast would not restart, even after aerating. I tried pitching a new starter which was going nicely, it knocked off 5 gravity points (from 1.045 after dilution) but then stopped. I now have 2 gallons what tastes like watered down beer, although it does smell nice! Any suggestions as to how to proceed, could it be acidity?

Well it can't harm it to check the pH. Honey based stuff can be a pain for that.

People wonder why they make a recipe that asks for acid additions up front, and then have problems with it. Not realising that just honey and water can be quite low, only to have it drop lower once the ferment is underway.

Ideally so that there's no issue for the yeast, you'd want it at about 3.5 or so pH, when batches drop below about 3.0 pH, you can get problems, hence these days, adding any acid up front is discredited as bad practice - it's already acidic enough.

Of course, adding acid later on, to alter the taste isn't a problem just that you need to do it incrementally.....

 

[gundog48]

Thanks, I'll let you know how the pH turns out once I get the tester! I'll look up the proper procedure for adding more if that's the case, but if it is outside the acceptable range, would bringing it back to the correct pH start the yeast off again or would the conditions have killed the yeast and I'd have to repitch?

This is turning into Frankenstein's Mead, but I'll be damned if I'm going to give up on it! Thankfully, all my other batches are coming along very nicely!

 

[gundog48]

I took a pH reading and it came out at 4.8, I believe that is a little on the high size? Do you think that this could have caused my problems?

 

[fatbloke]

4.8 is higher than normally found but no, its when it swings too low that it becomes too acidic and stalls the yeast (below 3.0).

 

[gundog48]

Back to the drawing board! I'll see if I can get some yeast to start using a sample of the braggot, I'm at a loss as to why it doesn't want to restart!

 

[gundog48]

Okay, looks like by braggot really hates yeast! I tried to get a starter going using a sample of the braggot. Rehydrated the yeast on it and it wouldn't do anything, so I added a little honey to the mix and it started to go like any starter does. After a while I added some more braggot and honey and it simply stopped. From something that had a ton of bubbles to literally nothing- I put my ear against it and couldn't hear a thing.

I'm really at a loss as to what could be the matter. Something in the braggot is stopping the yeast from doing it's job, the acidity is acceptable, the temperature is fine, there's still 40 gravity points of sugar plus the extra honey and the ~7% alcohol which I diluted a little shouldn't cause this much trouble. Any ideas? I'd hate to have to scrap this!

 

[kchaystack]

If you can no get it restarted, do not throw it away. Mix up a batch with less fermentables, and let it go bone dry. Then you can mix the 2 batches together and have even more to drink and gift!

 

[gundog48]

I like the idea! The thing is, the alcohol content is fine (around 7%) and the gravity is about 0.04 which is a sweetness which I would often drink it at- on paper, it should be decent. Unfortunately, it tastes horrible due to all the water- pretty much like watered down beer. I'm not sure how well that would work, maybe if I blended it with something dry before I diluted it!

I have a last resort, which I plan to try if the only option is to throw it out. I'm thinking of putting it in a freezer which I'm hoping will cause a lot of the water to freeze and leave the rest of the alcohol and fermentables as a liquid. I'll then use a sieve or something to remove the frozen bits and leave behind... something! I'm not sure, and I'll see where I go from there, but as I say- it's a last resort!