Urgent help required- Thomas Hardy Ale

[MARMITE]

I have just brewed a Thomas hardy Ale per Dave Line's recipe but because he was optimistic about M.E. I increased the grain bill by 50% with the idea of getting 2 1/2 galls instead of the 2 galls in the recipe. Trouble is my brew heat boiler just doesn't boil hard enough to evaporate enough liquid and I have now got just over 3galls at 1093. I have cooled it down. Dare I re-boil it on the gas stove to try to get the gravity higher or do you think it will spoil the brew?

[oblivious]

I would be inclined to cut my losses and leave it, it still will be a good drink old ale

[MARMITE]

Wort (OG 1093 - 3 galls ) pitched with 2 sachets of wine yeast approx 10 days ago. Gravity now reduced to 1065 but with fermentation apparently stopped. Transferred into 3 demi-johns but still no apparent activity. Any ideas please?

[SteveD]

Pitch more wine teast and aerate.

Yep I'd agree with that, or pitch Nottingham ale yeast. It doesn't mind high gravity. And what you should have done...and should do next time you take on a barley wine is....boil it till you've got the gravity you want. Then, once cool make sure it's well aerated, and I mean WELL. Then pitch a good ale yeast IN SUFFICIENT QUANTITY. I'm not shouting, but trying to emphasise the salient points. For a barley wine you need about 4 times the ammount of yeast than the pack tells you. For 23L of Barley wine I'd hit it with four 11g sachets. I'd use a tough yeast that will attenuate well and is alcohol tolerant - Nottingham.

I make a lot of beer in the OG 1060 to OG1100 range and almost always get a good fermentation by doing as I've described. The last biggie I made was OG1100. Nottingham took that down to G1018 in a matter of days at 18c. No sweat.

[MARMITE]

Thanks for the replies lads.Trouble is my Bruheat Boiler just doesn't boil hard enough to evaporate excess water even though I clean the element in citric acid after each brew..I have now rigged up a natural gas fired stainless steel boiler (10 gals) which I got out of a school meals kitchen so we will see if this works better.Just to update you on the progress of the T.H. brew I had only got 1 sachet of wine yeast left so had to wait untill I could fetch some more . Anyway after 48 hrs of being transferred to demis it started working again and is still bubbling nicely without adding more yeast so I,m inclined to wait and see what happens. I,ll certainly try a Nottingham yeast next time .

[MARMITE]

Update on thomas hardy ale.Been quietly fermenting very slowly at 20c for nearly 10 weeks so thought I would check the gravity-1050!!!!It's not off and still a little activity. Any ideas on what to do now?

[russt1969]

Think you should have roused the yeast a few times.

I'm in the middle of doing Gales Prize old ale. It started out above OG1.100 as thats as far as my hydrometer goes..... I split it into 2 because I'm using a culture made up from a Thomas Hardy Ale bottle and Nottingham yeast in the other. They have both been fermenting at 19c.

After 2 days the Nottinghams at 1.030
And the Thomas Hardy Ale Yeast is 1.025

This is a brew made on Sunday...... 10 weeks is a bit mad... I'd get some Nottingham in it dude...

[SteveD]

Hit it with 2 packs of Nottingham and give it a rouse. You could add 1/4tsp of Yeast Vit as well. I doubt that wort would be short of nutrients, but the Yeast Vit might help kick start it.

[russt1969]

Any joy Marmite?

[MARMITE]

I'm clean out of nottingham at the moment and need to get some in. In the meantime I've roused the yeast and it's working but I will repitch with nottingham asap.