Young's American Oaked Rum Yeast/Fermentation Q

[Adamski]

Hi all, I'm having a spot of bother with Fermentation of a Young's American Oaked Rum kit.

I followed the instructions and have the brew in the FV I pitched the yeast at 24C and had an original gravity of 1.060 on the 23 Jan. All seems fine at this point.

The FV temperature was consistently low for the first 4 days 14C-16C, bit of an oversight on my part , so on realising this I ordered a small aquarium heater. I sat the FV with brew in into another larger FV with water in it along with with aquarium heater. Temperature stabilised at 22C. I thought it'd be a good idea to give the brew a bit of a stir at this point.

Airlock bubbled away happily, took a gravity reading, 1.030 1st Feb.

Took gravity reading today 6 Feb 1.020 not much activity from airlock.

Cutting to the point!
The guidance for final gravity is 1.008, and I think looking at current progress this is highly unlikely to be anyway near, and I am wondering if I have denatured of damaged the yeast when pitching at 24C or when the temperature was sitting between 14-16C for the 4 days.

I'm now in a bit of a quandary; in that I am going away with work for a month in six days time.

So my questions (Phew took a long time getting to the point)

1. Should I leave the beer in the FV till the 11th hour so to speak?
2. Should I try and kick start fermentation with some kind of yeast?
3. Should I leave in the FV till I get back mid March?
4. Should I do something I don't know about because I'm a bit of a noob?

I don't know what yeast strain is in the kit, I could ring up Young's I guess, but I would be extremely grateful if anyone can give me a few pointers.
:

 

[MyQul]

You definately haven't damaged the yeast at 24C. Due to the cold ferment it's just means it was fermenting slower or it went into 'hibernation'. You then warmed it back up and got it going again.

Six day should be enough to get it down to/or near to your target. You could of course just wait to see if it drops any more as it's gone from 1.030 - 1.020. However 1.020 might be as far as it will go and you have a stuck brew

You can do a couple of things:

i. Add some yeast nutrient. You'll also need to give it a gentle stir again t get the yeast back into suspension.
ii. Add some more yeast - S04 would be a good yeast to use as it ferments really fast. Re-hydrate it to get it going sooner rather than just sprinkling on top.

You're obviously on the clock as you have work in six days. If you haven't got a LHBS near by and can get hold of S04, If you've got a wilko near by buy some gervin ale yeast and some yeast nutrient from there

 

[Adamski]

Thanks for the reply MyQ.

lhbs is a bit thin on the ground here in sweaty sockland!

But I'll go to the one place and see if I can get some S04 or nutrient.

Failing that I'll keg it at the last minute. If it's stuck as you say will it still be able to be conditioned at whatever gravity it sticks at?

Any best process procedure tip for rehydrating yeast if I can get some s04, never done it that way before?

I'm hoping the kit isn't screwed up, tastes quite nice at the moment. It's a learning get journey, I foolishly thought that 3 weeks would have been enough for the fermentation! Silly me!

Thanks for help

 

[MyQul]

It will condition at 1.020 but the beer will taste sweetas the sugars available to the yeast won't have been consumed and turned into alcohol.

Here's what I do to rehydrate yeast:

-Sanitize a cereal bowl with starsan and cover with sterilized foil - anytime your not actually accessing the bowl put the foil on to cover
- sanitize a spoon with starsan

- Boil some water to sterilize (about 200ml)
- Cool water to about 35C
-sprinkle yeast evenly on surface trying not to get any clumps
-Leave for 15 mins
-stir yeast with spoon
-put in freezer to cool for about ten minutes to within 5C of wort in FV temp. Your not really supposed to do this. You're supposed to carefully adjust the temp by adding wort from the FV spoon by spoon full till it gets within 5C of the wort in the FV but doing this takes ages and is a PITA so I just stick it in the freezer to cool down. Never had a problem doing this.
-Pitch reydrated yeast.

 

[Adamski]

I managed to source some S04 yeast (115g) at the local homebrew place (two shelves of stuff in a chemist) I rehydrated as per your excellent description. I pitched at exactly 22c same temp as wort in FV.

That yeast isn't cheap! £2.50 for 115 grammes, I'm in the wrong business!!

I gave the wort a bit of a stir.

Thanks for all the help on this MyQul, I'll let you know what it's at gravity wise when I transfer to keg. Fingers crossed for this one. I checked the gravity this morning 1.018 at a push, so I suspect it would have kept going but these things can become exponentially slow, and I strongly doubt it would get to final gravity before I have to go away for a month on next Friday.

Not ideal to force nature, but I suspect if I left in the FV till mid March the brew would be a greater risk, than trying to accelerate the process a bit!

Thanks again

Adam:

 

[MyQul]

As mentioned S04 is a fast fermenter and can ferment out completley in as little as 3 days, so should be done by the time you go away

Good luck

 

[Adamski]

Well it was keg'd yesterday at 1.010, so fingers crossed it'll be ok when I get back. I suspect this one will need 2 or 3 months conditioning! Thanks again for all your help and time on this one.

Best regards

Adam