Brewers Choice Wheat Beer - Problems!

[scottish69]

Hi all,

I recently started my first homebrew. This was my kit of choice - i made it up with "choice 3 - wheat malt extract". The kit included brewferm blanche top fermenting yeast.

After 3 days there was a decent head, then it subsided a little to leave a krausen. Successive gravity readings were 1.028 on days 5/6/7.

I think this was too high, even so i bottled it up. Added too much glucose to the secondary as well (1/3 more)! The stuff tastes ok, very sweet obviously.

Now im wondering what went wrong - and should i continue to wait for three weeks whilst its in secondary? Should i unscrew the caps periodically to ensure the bottles (plastic) dont explode?

I didnt have any extra yeast or yest-vit to pitch otherwise i would have done it. All i did was gently stir the fermenter to ensure any sugars had been mixed properly - no more yeast activity ensued however.

This was fermented in my house at @22 deg. I didnt take an initial gravity but the packet said 1.054 i believe.

Shall i ditch it?

Thanks in advance!

[big_treacle]

I did this kit - it stopped vigorous fermentation quite soon & after a week the frothy head was still there. i think i bottled it at something like 1018. Found it hard to get a good reading due to the amount of froth so it may have been different in reality.
It was really nice though - quite sweet & fruity & 4 pints were enough to really feel it!
I say, don't ditch it. Give it a few weeks & see how it goes down.

[scottish69]

Did you just leave it for the standard 7 days ferment then? I know its too late now but if i was int eh same situation do you think it would have gone to completion in another week?

1028 is awfully high.

[maxashton]

Sounds like a stuck fermentation. When that happens, best thng to do is agitate the yeast (Stir with sanitized plakky spoon), and see if it kicks off again, or leave it longer. Make sure its warm enough for the yeast to work.

[scottish69]

Yeah i stirred the bottom of the fermenter without mixing any air into it - i didnt mix the krausen into it either.

The day after the gravity hadnt shifted.

Now they are int eh bottle the yeast is going mad though!

[maxashton]

Haha, brilliant.
Best of luck. Keep your bottles somewhere people don't go, and wear goggles!

[steveh]

It does sound like a stuck fermentation - either that or the krausen / co2 has seriously affected your hyrdometer readings. I've got this in my king keg at the moment; I left it to ferment for 7 days then transferred to the keg with 180grams of sugar (I didn't take any hyrdo readings; I'm afraid) - and it was more than drinkable after just a week.

At least it's a good young beer; so you can sample it from any point you want to check on progress - Keep a close eye on those bottles; but being plastic they'll put up with quite a bit and it's supposed to be fairly well carbonated anyway.

If it was just bad hyrometer readings then don't worry about the extra glucose; I think the kit underspecifies for the style.

[scottish69]

Thought you might all be interested how its going... after a week in secondary fermentation int eh bottles there was excess carbonation. Ive kept letting the caps off to release it. Now the bottles dont feel as hard, so theres still a little co2 in there i think. Activity seems to have stopped, so ive put half the bottles in the fridge - is this the right thing to do? Ive heard they clear faster in the fridge... had a quick taste and its actually quite nice!! Not too sweet.