Stuck fermentation?

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Goodbeer

Well-Known Member
Joined
2/3/15
Messages
177
Reaction score
26
Hello all

My latest brew is wet dogs hop hog clone.

1.5kg light malt

1.5kg wheat malt

1kg Light dry malt

200g crystal

Won't go into the hop schedule.

Used US05, didn't rehydrate(I know, poor practice)

Has been fermenting at 18 for 10 days. Had quite a long lag time, but once airlock started going bubbled for 6 days.

First reading was day 5 and 1026.

Took reading day 8, 9 and 10, and has been 1020 each time.

This gives an apparent attenuation of 68%.

Would I be right in thinking it's stuck?

Would I be best putting the temp up to 20 for a couple of days before cold crashing?

I have read more yeast can help with stuck fermentation, but needs to be done via a starter...I do have a spare bag of 05 in the fridge I could use, would be good if I got away without it though.

Cheers
 
Still beginner myself but,
You never took OG reading. At 5 days is not an OG. It has dropped, meaning fermentation has taken place but after so long a lag time, I'd say infection.
Maybe you have made a sour(?)
Wait for more expert opinion.
I've just had a few and enjoy a chat.
 
Shit sorry forgot to put OG in, was 1062.

Mr malty seemed to think one 11.5g bag of dried would do the job for 20L
 
It was about 24hrs til airlock kicked in, much longer than any previous brews...however after about 16 hrs, I noticed that the grommet got a bit pushed in when I put the airlock in, and there was a a decent gap for air to escape....hopefully nothing got in.

Don't think it's infected, tastes pretty amazing thus far
 
Look in the wiki articles srction for 'my beer is 1022, can I bottle it'.
If it tastes good - no don't ditch. If it's stuck, it can be unstuck.
 
Keep in mind that extract + spec grain will finish higher than straight kk or most ag brews.
Covered in the article but worth pointing out again.
 
I had a bit of a play with your ingredients in Brewmate, you should get a FG of about 1.015 - Close, but maybe worth bumping a couple of degrees and giving a gentle shake to resuspend yeast?
 
OG of 1062 and final G of 1020, beersmith says you have 5.5% alcohol.
Bottle it.
 
I'd be getting the temperature up 2-3 degrees and gently rousing the yeast to try and get it going, check it in a few days to see if it has dropped any.

It's become standard practice for me now to raise my ales up to 21 from 18 on about day 5 or 6 to encourage them to fully attenuate.
 
Other than the travesty of running out of beer, it never hurts* to leave it in the fermenter for another week or two.

*It never hurts the beer. You, on the other hand, are fair game.
 
Thanks guys, all good info.
Good article manticle, quite informative.

I've found so far that it is a fine line between being patient and doing things the right way, and not running out I beer!!!

Another fv would solve a lot of problems, but not a spare square centimetre in my place, so will stick with one for the time being.

Thanks again
 
This has answered a whole heap of questions that I had intended on posting tonight, good timing.
Two questions I do have are in regards to non-fermentables, my brew is also sitting at 1.020 for 3 days (OG was 1.050) ;amoung other things, I added blackberry "juice" (gently simmered the berries-strained pulp-added the water/juice to the FV) and organic Cacao. 1: will the Cacao thats suspended in the hydrometer sample effect the reading by 'bouying' the hydrometer? 2: How do I get the Cacao out of suspension? the majority drops out of the sample when i refrigerate it but it could be cleaner...

Cheers,
 
Mate I don't have any experience with cacao or blackberry juice...very little experience at all.

Sounds interesting though, thinking of throwing some cacao in my next dark ale
 
Back
Top