Spray malt Ginger beer fermentation stuck...

[Jamjar1982]

Ok so stupid question time... drum roll please. ....

I've made mead wine cider etc etc before so not exactly a novice but I'm making a ginger beer with 100% light spray malt as the fermentables instead of 50/50 with sugar. I'm not a beer guy so malts etc aren't really my bag, this is more of a recipe experiment. Anyway, the primary fermentation stopped short of total as to be expected, but now I've back sweetened with sugar and let it go again before I bottle condition and pasteurise, except no bubbles. Tried racking, aerating, fresh yeast, yeast nutrients... but nothing. I'm probably being thick but any suggestions? Thanks

Yeast Gervin GV12
pH 3.5
Start S.G 1.050
Finished 1.007 (now sugar added to 1.050)
Ginger
Light spray malt
Citrus
Cream of tarter.
Ferm temp 22 c ish.

 

[DarrenSL]

I don't know if I'm misunderstanding but you have fermented as normal using spraymalt, then added sugar back in to get back up to 1.050? At 1.007 your abv would be at 5.6%, adding back to 1.050 and refermenting again would, in theory, give you a final abv of 11.2%! That's a toxic alcohol level for most yeast especially english ale yeast which I think is around 7% abv max.

 

[Jamjar1982]

Hi.. thanks for your reply . .. Usually when I've done this recipe before I've used 50/50 malt and sugar to same Initial S.g. Fermentation always completes to 1.000. I then backsweeten (yes its a lot of sugar but its supposed to be) and bottle condition for 5 days to carbonate before pasteurising to stop Fermentation. Except this time the yeast has just stopped all together. I'm trying to get it going again so I can bottle condition. Hope that explains it better. I have since added some K1V 1116 as it was spare to see what happens Cheers