Stuck/Slow Ferment

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searly333

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Hi Guys,

I've been a member on this forum for a while but this is my first post.

I put down a Sundown Lager clone last Thursday night and after oxygenating the wort with pure o2, pitched into it a yeast starter that i'd made the day before from Wyeast 1056 American Ale and placed it in my temp controlled fridge at 19 degrees. It had an OG of 1046 and when I checked it the next day the krausen had come out the top of my airlock and I thought at that rate it would have fermented out in a few days. I checked the SG yesterday and it was down to 1036 and this afternoon 1032 but in the past I've had much faster results just by pitching the liquid yeast straight into the wort. It was a pretty decent starter so I'm wondering if there can be problems with overpitching? Still has about twenty points to ferment to get to FG.

Any thoughts or ideas would be appreciated.

Cheers,
Luke.
 
It wouldn't be overpitching that would cause a stalled ferment, and I highly doubt you overpitched anyway.

What's your current fermentation temperature? Did it drop at all? What sort of variation does your fermentation temperature have during the day/night?
 
Virgin Brewer said:
I checked the SG yesterday and it was down to 1036 and this afternoon 1032
This doesn't sound like it has stalled to me. I reckon you are panicing over nothing really.

Sit back, relax and let it do it's thing. Sometimes they will ferment quickly and other times slowly. Just leave it for now and check again in about a weeks time.
 
It's entirely possible that a lot of your yeast fermented quickly, got bloated/tired out and fell out, leaving a smaller amount of yeast still fermenting. Give it time, it should be good.
 
My temp is constant as it is in a temperature controlled fridge. I thought that because the ferment started do rapidly and then slowed down that there may have been a problem. I'll take your advice and wait. Might even have a beverage or two whilst doing said waiting.

Thanks for that guys.
 
Just checked the gravity and it has spent the past three days at 1032 which is still way off FG. Should I try to pitch fresh yeast into it?
 
I had a similar thing recently. I just gave the fermenter a gentle swirl (without taking the lid off) and seemed to pick up again that night. Sometimes it may be done in 4 days and other times takes over 2 weeks. Doesn't seem to negatively affect the taste.
 
Assuming your temperature is still at 19C, or at least greater than 16C, then you can give the FV a gentle swirl and if you have an airlock then you need to take action to stop the contents being sucked into your wort and try not to splash it. Better still, chuck the airlock and replace with glad wrap then you don't need to worry about it.

Some people sterilise a stirrer and give a gentle stir but I don't suggest doing this as it will give a higher risk of introducing an infection. Test it again in a couple of days and if the SG is still on 1032 then throw some more yeast at it.
 
You haven't switched from Hydro to a refrac by any chance ?
 
The swirl seems to have got those lazy little buggers back into action again and its dropped 10 points in four days. Hopefully it will chew through the other 10 as well. :icon_cheers:

Refrac is in the mail
 
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