4 weeks and still bubbling

[ShineRunner]

You're getting some great information here, so don't get frustrated with us. Basically, throw away whatever this other bloke told you. You've got a bunch of unfermentable starches because you never converted the starch to sugar with your malt, or enzymes, or whatever. You're getting a gravity reading from your hydrometer, but it's not really very fermentable. You said you've brewed before, so take that knowledge and apply it here. Mashing is mashing is mashing. Enzymes (either artificial or from malt) are needed to convert starches into sugar which is converted into delicious beer by yeast!

Personally, I would cut my losses with this batch and start over with your new knowledge of how to do things right. You learn that by reading here. Forget this other joker who is not helping things. Don't listen to homebrew shop owners.

What kind of reflux still do you have? More than likely, it's not really a reflux still and you might be able to make some fine product from it. Let us know so we can steer you in the right direction.

Start over with Jimbos bourbon or maybe HBB, since you're looking for a honey bourbon. This stuff really isn't that hard and throwing more money at your current batch is just that. By the time you screw around with it for much longer, you could've bought everything for HBB and distilled it by now.

SR

[skow69]

Lots of stuff to add up here.

So you had 6.6 kg of unmalted grain in approximately 20 liters (net) of water when you added 1.2 kg malt at what temperature? This is an important question. Too hot and you denature the malt or make a bunch of long dextrins that won't ferment--good for beer but just wasted grain for us. Too cold and it will convert very slowly except yours stopped when you cheese clothed out the grains. Goldie Locks likes hers around 145f (63C).

So, big picture, we're mashing 7.8 kg (17 lb) grain in ~ 20 liters (5.3 gal) of water. That's 3.2 lb/gal. That's a pretty tall order for most of us. The common rule of thumb calls for 2 lb/gal.

Now if we use John Palmer's formula we see we need 215 points of diastatic yadda yadda which means we need 7.2 lbs (3.3 kg) of malt to convert it all. We got less than half that.

I'm thinking your mash didn't have much hope from the get go. Like Pres. Trump says, "Nobody knew it could be that complicated!" You're getting a lot of education real fast, so don't get discouraged. We all started some time and we all screwed up our first mash or 2 or 5. It's required failure to prove you are worthy. You'll get it in time.

Didja start that second ferment yet? You've got more patience than I do if you keep screwing with this one.

The original ingredients were half of what I used. I found out that the reflux still I bought stripped the flavour from grain alcohol.
When I queried this the bloke told me to double the amount of ingredients so I did, thinking somebody who worked in the
business should know what he was talking about. It would appear I was wrong.
I haven't started a second batch yet as I don't have the ingredients or the equipment so will stuff around with this for a while and
see what happens. I might even distill it just for the practise. But I can tell you this for a fact, it' getting bloody expensive.

I'll bet. Too bad you put all that spendy honey in there.

Half? Nah! Are you saying you actually tried to mash 15.6 kg of grain in 20 liters of water?

I think the other option would be to stash it someplace warm, like 27 - 38 degrees and just ignore it until it finishes. Check it once a month or something. Might take a while. Might have a high FG. Figure it is what it is and some day it stop bubbling and clear itself. If we are all still alive, you can run it and tell us how it turned out. But I wouldn't expect anybody to pop up with the magic fix at this point. Some ferments just suck.

Do I have to come over there and buy that second fermenter bucket for you? Get back on the horse. We'll be here for you.

[Pikey]

OK - It's a shame you didn't give us some of that information earlier.
Well I guess you live and learn.

atb

p

Ok well I'm still a bit annoyed that I spent so much time and effort trying to help you when you hadn't made the effort to help yourself by telling us properly what you did.

However, it seems fairly simple now - You seem to have got some "conversion" and my suspicion is there's way too much sugar in there for a bread yeast - dilute it - say another 10-15-20 litres of plain water and wait for it to finish.

Edit:

[Still Life]

eh, Pikey, he's brand new and was getting bad advice from a brew shop "authority."
I think he presented what he knew and wasn't avoiding anything. Plus he had misplaced faith in what he was told at the HBS.
Maybe I got a soft spot for service veterans such as he.

[Pikey]

eh, Pikey, he's brand new and was getting bad advice from a brew shop "authority."
I think he presented what he knew and wasn't avoiding anything. Plus he had misplaced faith in what he was told at the HBS.
Maybe I got a soft spot for service veterans such as he.

After the PM I sent you, subsequent to your previously deleted post, I'm sad to see this from you SL.

At the end of the day - I'm the only one who has come back and given the lad a way out ! - WHere's YOUR suggestion ?

So what's your gripe ?

[Still Life]

Yeah, I posted and deleted. Then thought about it and posted later.
No worries, pal. Likely my misunderstanding your "out" to him.

Honestly did not get your PM. It went south with my deletion since that's where you likely initiated it.

Gripe? Shit... I'm the easiest guy to get along with.

You ever get that sense about a new guy that he's trying hard --and spending to prove it.
On top of it, he got shit advice and isn't necessarily privy to posting "our way."
Then it sounded like you were just pissed off at him for withholding information.

I'd stick up for you same way.
You're one of my favorite posters.
We dig?

Send me the PM I missed if you can still word it originally. No worries...

[Pikey]

The Pm has recently gone from my "outbox"

I will "copy and paste - If I can xxxx

Dya wanna drink ? - I've got "Bacardi, whisky and a duff version of brandy

[Still Life]

The Pm has recently gone from my "outbox"

I will "copy and paste - If I can xxxx

Dya wanna drink ? - I've got "Bacardi, whisky and a duff version of brandy

That's me. Drinking other people's stuff. Peace, pal.

[Pikey]

Copy and Paste - sent - to SL

[Still Life]

No wonder you were pissed at me after that nice PM and my wayward response!
Hopefully new guy ausibatla is still with us. Seemed a nice guy.

[Pikey]

He'll be back - if he's serious

we'll get him running ok !

[Still Life]

He'll be back - if he's serious

we'll get him running ok !

Just got a PM from him. He'll be back. And I think this time with a results vengeance.

[thecroweater]

Home brew shops are very often not the best place for advice and there are some inherent reasons for that. One most specialize it beer brewing products and get most of their distilling advice from the suppliers of flavouring cordials, carbon filters clearing agents and hbs stills. Good clean washes spell less sales in those products and full flavoured mashes/musts/ washes even less. I'm not taring every shop like that but every shop does need to cater to those that want to go that direction

[ausibatla]

Just checked out my ferment again. put my finger in and tasted it. It was sweet but bitter.
I then gave it good shake up to get some oxygen through it and it brought all the sediment to the top.
It was like black (from the carbon stuff I put in) mud. It soon settled back down to the bottom.
I did a SG test and it's still sitting on 1028. I put the lid back on it and after a while it was putting
bubbles through the airlock every 7 seconds. Prior to the shake up it was down to every 20 seconds.
It's been in the fermenter since the 7th. April now.
Cheers.

[Oldvine Zin]

Set that one aside and start a new one - from what you have learned it can only get better

Good luck

OVZ

[ShineRunner]

I then gave it good shake up to get some oxygen through it and it brought all the sediment to the top.

You do not want to add oxygen after fermentation begins, or at least definitely not towards the end. Here's an excerpt from this link. It's a long read, but a good one! https://www.morebeer.com/articles/oxyge ... rmentation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The hazards of respiration: As a further testament to its flexibility, yeast is also diauxic, meaning the cells can use more than one carbon source for their energy needs. Under certain circumstances, yeast can respire ethanol as well as glucose, producing acetic acid (vinegar) as a by-product. This process can occur only in the presence of oxygen when no alternative energy source (that is, no fermentable sugar) is available. Fortunately, our yeast does not normally get the chance to oxidize ethanol to acetic acid because by the time all the sugar is gone and ethanol is available for respiration, no dissolved oxygen is left in solution.

Therefore, one reason brewers try to avoid aeration after fermentation has begun is to prevent their beer from turning sour. Another hazard of aeration in the brewhouse at this stage is that it can also promote chemical oxidation reactions (yielding nasty aldehydes like trans-2-nonenal), which cause staling of the finished beer.

I should emphasize that although yeast is capable of performing respiration, this pathway is irrelevant for brewers because respiration does not normally occur in the production of beer.

Why Yeast Doesn’t Respire in Wort

Basically, yeast does not respire in wort because it doesn’t have to! Like most other organisms, yeast does only what is necessary for survival and reproduction. If resources such as sugar are abundant, they are used in abundance (and generally wasted). In the case of brewers’ yeast, respiration does not occur in the presence of glucose, regardless of the oxygen concentration. This phenomenon has been called the Crabtree effect (named after H.G. Crabtree, the scientist who discovered it in tumor cells in 1929). The Crabtree effect is a metabolic regulatory mechanism that causes aerobically growing yeast to repress the respiratory pathway in favor of fermentation if fermentable sugars are available.

You don't have a lot of fermentable sugars available, so you may now be making vinegar from what alcohol you had. Or making aldehydes that you also don't want. Overall, I would still try to just call it quits on this one and chalk it up to a learning process. Keep it on the side and start a new healthy batch.

SR

[ausibatla]

You're getting some great information here, so don't get frustrated with us. Basically, throw away whatever this other bloke told you. You've got a bunch of unfermentable starches because you never converted the starch to sugar with your malt, or enzymes, or whatever. You're getting a gravity reading from your hydrometer, but it's not really very fermentable. You said you've brewed before, so take that knowledge and apply it here. Mashing is mashing is mashing. Enzymes (either artificial or from malt) are needed to convert starches into sugar which is converted into delicious beer by yeast!

Personally, I would cut my losses with this batch and start over with your new knowledge of how to do things right. You learn that by reading here. Forget this other joker who is not helping things. Don't listen to homebrew shop owners.

What kind of reflux still do you have? More than likely, it's not really a reflux still and you might be able to make some fine product from it. Let us know so we can steer you in the right direction.

Start over with Jimbos bourbon or maybe HBB, since you're looking for a honey bourbon. This stuff really isn't that hard and throwing more money at your current batch is just that. By the time you screw around with it for much longer, you could've bought everything for HBB and distilled it by now.

SR

It's a Pure Distilling "Spirit Maker". I was just going to leave it and see what happens.
If worse comes to worse I can just put it through the still for practice.
Cheers.

[ausibatla]

Lots of stuff to add up here.

So you had 6.6 kg of unmalted grain in approximately 20 liters (net) of water when you added 1.2 kg malt at what temperature? This is an important question. Too hot and you denature the malt or make a bunch of long dextrins that won't ferment--good for beer but just wasted grain for us. Too cold and it will convert very slowly except yours stopped when you cheese clothed out the grains. Goldie Locks likes hers around 145f (63C).

So, big picture, we're mashing 7.8 kg (17 lb) grain in ~ 20 liters (5.3 gal) of water. That's 3.2 lb/gal. That's a pretty tall order for most of us. The common rule of thumb calls for 2 lb/gal.

Now if we use John Palmer's formula we see we need 215 points of diastatic yadda yadda which means we need 7.2 lbs (3.3 kg) of malt to convert it all. We got less than half that.

I'm thinking your mash didn't have much hope from the get go. Like Pres. Trump says, "Nobody knew it could be that complicated!" You're getting a lot of education real fast, so don't get discouraged. We all started some time and we all screwed up our first mash or 2 or 5. It's required failure to prove you are worthy. You'll get it in time.

Didja start that second ferment yet? You've got more patience than I do if you keep screwing with this one.

The original ingredients were half of what I used. I found out that the reflux still I bought stripped the flavour from grain alcohol.
When I queried this the bloke told me to double the amount of ingredients so I did, thinking somebody who worked in the
business should know what he was talking about. It would appear I was wrong.
I haven't started a second batch yet as I don't have the ingredients or the equipment so will stuff around with this for a while and
see what happens. I might even distill it just for the practise. But I can tell you this for a fact, it' getting bloody expensive.

I'll bet. Too bad you put all that spendy honey in there.

Half? Nah! Are you saying you actually tried to mash 15.6 kg of grain in 20 liters of water?

I think the other option would be to stash it someplace warm, like 27 - 38 degrees and just ignore it until it finishes. Check it once a month or something. Might take a while. Might have a high FG. Figure it is what it is and some day it stop bubbling and clear itself. If we are all still alive, you can run it and tell us how it turned out. But I wouldn't expect anybody to pop up with the magic fix at this point. Some ferments just suck.

Do I have to come over there and buy that second fermenter bucket for you? Get back on the horse. We'll be here for you.

Thanks mate. I think that's what I'll do. Just leave it as long as I see bubbles in the airlock.
And I do appreciate all the advice you blokes are giving me.
Cheers.

[ausibatla]

OK - It's a shame you didn't give us some of that information earlier.
Well I guess you live and learn.

atb

p

Ok well I'm still a bit annoyed that I spent so much time and effort trying to help you when you hadn't made the effort to help yourself by telling us properly what you did.

However, it seems fairly simple now - You seem to have got some "conversion" and my suspicion is there's way too much sugar in there for a bread yeast - dilute it - say another 10-15-20 litres of plain water and wait for it to finish.

Edit:

Sorry if you thought I was misleading you, Pikey.
I'm also sorry you thought I was the type of bloke that would do that.

[ausibatla]

eh, Pikey, he's brand new and was getting bad advice from a brew shop "authority."
I think he presented what he knew and wasn't avoiding anything. Plus he had misplaced faith in what he was told at the HBS.
Maybe I got a soft spot for service veterans such as he.

Thanks for watching my back, "Still Life" I appreciate it.
I would never deliberately misrepresent my position. By doing that
I would only get misinformation in return and that defeats the
purpose of this forum.
Cheers.

[Still Life]

Now it's your turn to prove yourself.
Distill this goddam thing and let's get on some proven recipes.
No more on it. Bad medicine.
There's good shit waiting in here for you.

[ausibatla]

Set that one aside and start a new one - from what you have learned it can only get better

Good luck

OVZ

Thanks mate.

[ausibatla]

I then gave it good shake up to get some oxygen through it and it brought all the sediment to the top.

You do not want to add oxygen after fermentation begins, or at least definitely not towards the end. Here's an excerpt from this link. It's a long read, but a good one! https://www.morebeer.com/articles/oxyge ... rmentation" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;" rel="nofollow

The hazards of respiration: As a further testament to its flexibility, yeast is also diauxic, meaning the cells can use more than one carbon source for their energy needs. Under certain circumstances, yeast can respire ethanol as well as glucose, producing acetic acid (vinegar) as a by-product. This process can occur only in the presence of oxygen when no alternative energy source (that is, no fermentable sugar) is available. Fortunately, our yeast does not normally get the chance to oxidize ethanol to acetic acid because by the time all the sugar is gone and ethanol is available for respiration, no dissolved oxygen is left in solution.

Therefore, one reason brewers try to avoid aeration after fermentation has begun is to prevent their beer from turning sour. Another hazard of aeration in the brewhouse at this stage is that it can also promote chemical oxidation reactions (yielding nasty aldehydes like trans-2-nonenal), which cause staling of the finished beer.

I should emphasize that although yeast is capable of performing respiration, this pathway is irrelevant for brewers because respiration does not normally occur in the production of beer.

Why Yeast Doesn’t Respire in Wort

Basically, yeast does not respire in wort because it doesn’t have to! Like most other organisms, yeast does only what is necessary for survival and reproduction. If resources such as sugar are abundant, they are used in abundance (and generally wasted). In the case of brewers’ yeast, respiration does not occur in the presence of glucose, regardless of the oxygen concentration. This phenomenon has been called the Crabtree effect (named after H.G. Crabtree, the scientist who discovered it in tumor cells in 1929). The Crabtree effect is a metabolic regulatory mechanism that causes aerobically growing yeast to repress the respiratory pathway in favor of fermentation if fermentable sugars are available.

You don't have a lot of fermentable sugars available, so you may now be making vinegar from what alcohol you had. Or making aldehydes that you also don't want. Overall, I would still try to just call it quits on this one and chalk it up to a learning process. Keep it on the side and start a new healthy batch.

SR

G'day ShineRunner. Thanks for the info. I'm learning more each day.
Do you think the extra 1 kg of sugar and the 2 kg of honey could have slowed it down?
Should I just put it to one side and let it do it's thing?
I think next time I get into town I'll get a second fermenter and try that Honey Bear recipe.
Cheers.

[thecroweater]

if you still just got a reflux still you might be just be better of perfecting birdwatchers and start checking out how to put together a simple pot still. Reflux stills don't do those recipes justice as they turn it to neutral, especially your still. You can buy spare lid for somewhere around $35 and make a pot head to suit that if ya want or get a beer keg and have a pot still completely separate.

[Pikey]

............

Sorry if you thought I was misleading you, Pikey.
I'm also sorry you thought I was the type of bloke that would do that.

Ok mate, I was a bit annoyed, I said so and then offerred suggestions. - Didn't go off in a sulk and wait for a chance to "Get even" as so many do

Good to see you back

Fermenters

You can use any water container you have laying about as long as it's fit to drink out of

Anything made of copper, stainless, glass, food safe plastic etc.

Aluminium is regarded as a little "suspect" although I've used it in the past.

Anything made of Iron, or Steel , Galvanised etc are "No-no's".

You don't actually need a "Bubbler". Screw the cap on and back it off a tiny bit so it lets the pressure out. If you have a bucket with no lid, a sheet of plastic (split bag) over the to and a string tied around will work. I often use a length of string, with the ends tied to a rubber band so it grips and has some "Give" in it.

[thecroweater]

Theses olive drums are cheap and work great. They come in a range of sizes, the two here are 75 and 200 litres

[ausibatla]

............

Sorry if you thought I was misleading you, Pikey.
I'm also sorry you thought I was the type of bloke that would do that.

Ok mate, I was a bit annoyed, I said so and then offerred suggestions. - Didn't go off in a sulk and wait for a chance to "Get even" as so many do

Good to see you back

Fermenters

You can use any water container you have laying about as long as it's fit to drink out of

Anything made of copper, stainless, glass, food safe plastic etc.

Aluminium is regarded as a little "suspect" although I've used it in the past.

Anything made of Iron, or Steel , Galvanised etc are "No-no's".

You don't actually need a "Bubbler". Screw the cap on and back it off a tiny bit so it lets the pressure out. If you have a bucket with no lid, a sheet of plastic (split bag) over the to and a string tied around will work. I often use a length of string, with the ends tied to a rubber band so it grips and has some "Give" in it.

Cheers mate.

[ausibatla]

if you still just got a reflux still you might be just be better of perfecting birdwatchers and start checking out how to put together a simple pot still. Reflux stills don't do those recipes justice as they turn it to neutral, especially your still. You can buy spare lid for somewhere around $35 and make a pot head to suit that if ya want or get a beer keg and have a pot still completely separate.

Think I might check that out mate.
Cheers.

[Still Life]

BTW, ausibatla. That's a pretty cool avatar.
Makes me think if I had a family coat of arms it'd be a straight jacket tied in back.

[ausibatla]

BTW, ausibatla. That's a pretty cool avatar.
Makes me think if I had a family coat of arms it'd be a straight jacket tied in back.

Royal Australian Engineers Corps Badge, mate.
I was an Airbourne Engineer. Don't know why. Never jumped into
combat. Nobody that I know of has parachuted into combat since WWII
It's all in by chopper landing or repelling from the chopper now.
Our motto is UBIQUE (pronounced yoo - beek) which is Latin for, "Everywhere".
Google RAE Corps badge for better clarity.