Stuck Ferment on Dunkelweizen?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

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

wintermute2

Well-Known Member
Joined
Sep 29, 2012
Messages
73
Reaction score
0
Location
Seaford
I'm making a Dunkelweizen from a kit put together by the LHBS. OG = 1.052. SG @ 13 days = 1.024

The recipe is as follows

Steeped 20 minutes @ 152 deg. F:
8 oz. chocolate malt
8 oz. Munich malt

Boil 60 minutes:
@ 0 minutes added 6.6 lbs. Breiss CBW Bavarian Wheat LME, 1 lb. Maltodextrin, 0.5 oz. Williamette 4.9% AA
@ 40 minutes added 0.5 oz. Hersbrucker 2.6% AA
@ 60 minutes, flameout, coldbreak down to 70 deg. F in 15 minutes
Transfer to primary
Added a packet of Lallemand Munich Wheat Beer Yeast (rehydrated) into primary
Good airlock action for 7 days. after 13 days it's only at SG = 1.024, recipe calls for FG = 1.012 - 1.015. Tasted bland. I agitated the fermenter a bit at this point.

Is this a stuck fermentation? What do I do about it?
 
I guess I should mention that it's been sitting in a 64-65 deg F closet. I've done more searching and it seems that increasing temperature might help rouse the yeast. Any suggestions for this? I can't increase the temp of the surroundings. Maybe sit bucket on a heating pad for an hour?
 
So I'm having almost the same exact problem, except I have my dunkelweizen in two different carboys. One is still active and the other stopped. I tried heating the stuck one like you mentioned in your post to get it going again, I had some moderate success with it. Problem is I tasted both last night and the one I heated has an off taste to it. If I had to do it over again I would just let it sit. I'm hoping when I bottle it and let it sit some of that off flavor will smooth out. I'm interested to see what others say
 
Okay, I moved my fermenter to my boiler room, which gets pretty warm when the boiler's running, but can go down to 62 degrees, maybe less. After a few hours, SG = 1.022, which may or may not show activity. I stirred up my yeast cake and smeared some on the (inside) side of the fermenter. Hopefully I didn't oxidize the beer too much. If the beer hadn't tasted so bland the other day, I would have bottled as-is. But then again, the sample I tasted was clear - maybe it'll flavor up with some yeast suspension.

How is this Lallemand wheat yeast that came with the kit? Maybe that's the weak link?
 
Boil 60 minutes:
@ 0 minutes added 6.6 lbs. Breiss CBW Bavarian Wheat LME, 1 lb. Maltodextrin, 0.5 oz. Williamette 4.9% AA
@ 40 minutes added 0.5 oz. Hersbrucker 2.6% AA
@ 60 minutes, flameout, coldbreak down to 70 deg. F in 15 minutes

FYI, you've got your timing backwards: the minute increments should be counting down so that 60 minutes is when most people start to boil (or at least add hops if doing a 90 minute boil), and 0 minutes is flameout. Just trying to prevent any confusion in the future; mixing up bittering and aroma hops could be an issue in the future otherwise!
 
Back
Top