Stuck Fermentation - Again! Help...

[pjsyrax]

Hi All,

I'm still only a few of years into brewing and have been reasonably successful with BIAB all grain brewing. Recently, with a new kid and less time on my hands i decided to switch back to extract/kit and bit brewing.

My last brew stopped fermenting around 1.020 (OG was around 1.042) and is a brown ale.

I may have pitched a bit to high a temp, around 25 degrees as my temp reading was wrong as it picked up a non mixed cool spot at the top of the bucket and read around 20-21.

After a couple of weeks i pitched a yeast starter made with Dark DME and a touch of hops. I left it for 24+ hours before pitching it and within 30 minutes everything seemed ok, the air lock was bubling away for a few days.

Anyway, it seems to be stuck again 1.5 weeks later and is around 1.016 - 1.014.

After the initial pitching temp the temp was very steady at 21 degrees as i use a temp control unit and its been so cold this winter i've not needed cooling.

Is there anything more i can do?

For what its work the recipe was a Tooheys Dark Ale kit with 1.2 kilo of DME plus some steeped chocolate malt and crystal 120. Topped off to about 25L to reduce bitterness.

Please, any advice would be welcome!!

Cheers,
Phil

 

[BrosysBrews]

Are you just using kit yeast? If so it is probably a bit of an under pitch. There are online yeast pitching calculators.

 

[Vini2ton]

Use your hydrometer. If it's steady for a while bottle. How much steeped choc and crystal?

 

[pjsyrax]

Initially i used the kit yeast, so yes it could have been low in count, but it did start off fine. For the yeast starter i used a s-05 from the LHBS who keeps things pretty fresh and always refrigerated.

I used about 400g total of the specialty grain.

 

[manticle]

Roast malt plus lots of dme suggests its done at 1014.

Do a fast/forced ferment test to make sure, especially if bottling.

 

[Kev R]

Do you oxy/ airate? Yeast has run out of somthing or it wouldn't stop.
how big was your starter?
why use hops your making yeast not beer?

 

[Helles]

Do you oxy/ airate? Yeast has run out of somthing or it wouldn't stop.
how big was your starter?
why use hops your making yeast not beer?

The hops would be or their anti-bacterial properties

 

[pjsyrax]

I aerated the batch at the start, just manually with a big spoon etc.

I added hops because i was adding a 2L starter and didn't want to further decrease the IBU of the beer as it was already on the light side in terms of bittering.

 

[pjsyrax]

Roast malt plus lots of dme suggests its done at 1014.

Do a fast/forced ferment test to make sure, especially if bottling.

Is this where you siphon off a small amount, raise the temp up (to maybe close to the 30) and see if it ferments any more?

 

[warra48]

Is this where you siphon off a small amount, raise the temp up (to maybe close to the 30) and see if it ferments any more?

That's it.
Best to do it to be sure before bottling.