So I brewed a batch of our house Red Ale on Saturday (14 plato) and after starting to knock out the batch through the HE and into fermenter I noticed that we were out of Oxygen. We had just changed the tank on the previous brew and had a leak. I don't have access to an air compressor so I kinda had to shrug my shoulders and say "oh well, we'll see what happens!"
The yeast is WL 001 and it was a brand new 7 bbl pitch from BSI. We're currently on day five of fermentation and activity has been very slow. The beer is only about 25% attenuated (still bubbling away slowly but constantly) and currently at 10.5 plato. Even with a new batch of yeast normally I would expect fermentation to be just about over by day 5. My forced-fermenation test shows that I can expect a final gravity of around 3.8 (74% app. attenuation), so available sugar isn't a problem. Clearly lack of O2 is.
Any ideas on what would be the smart thing to do? I expect an O2 delivery tomorrow, but I'm thinking that this far into fermentation it's a bad idea to add more. I've always thought adding O2 after more than 12 hours was a no-no. However, we're still only 25% attenuated so.....?
Should I wait it out as long as the beer keeps fermenting (however slowly)? Should I try and pump some O2 in there tomorrow? Any thoughts? I will run out of this beer in the next week and could really use this batch getting finished asap.
Any advice is always appreciated. Probrewer rocks!
The yeast is WL 001 and it was a brand new 7 bbl pitch from BSI. We're currently on day five of fermentation and activity has been very slow. The beer is only about 25% attenuated (still bubbling away slowly but constantly) and currently at 10.5 plato. Even with a new batch of yeast normally I would expect fermentation to be just about over by day 5. My forced-fermenation test shows that I can expect a final gravity of around 3.8 (74% app. attenuation), so available sugar isn't a problem. Clearly lack of O2 is.
Any ideas on what would be the smart thing to do? I expect an O2 delivery tomorrow, but I'm thinking that this far into fermentation it's a bad idea to add more. I've always thought adding O2 after more than 12 hours was a no-no. However, we're still only 25% attenuated so.....?
Should I wait it out as long as the beer keeps fermenting (however slowly)? Should I try and pump some O2 in there tomorrow? Any thoughts? I will run out of this beer in the next week and could really use this batch getting finished asap.
Any advice is always appreciated. Probrewer rocks!
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