Stuck Fermentation

I made a wheat with Fuggles and crystal loose willamatte hops. Then I boiled corriander, cinnamon sticks, and cherry puree during the last 15.

I pitched a WyYeast into the bucket, but nothing happened for well over 48 hours. I repitched a small package of dry yeast, and that got the air lock bubbling for about a day and a half.

Now it's stopped.

What do I do next? Is it dead? should I pitch yeast again?

HALP!

i have a similar issue happening with one of my brews at the moment. All of the advice given seems to be just let it ride for another couple weeks and check your FG.

Here is my thread if you want to read on it.
My issue wasnt exactly the same but similar: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/stuck-fermentation-no-help-please-448856/

Good luck!

What was your OG? All-grain or extract? What's the temp? What yeast?

Your liquid yeast could have been dead, or old. I always make a starter with those. It's not hard, and it solves or prevents a lot of problems.

You say "small pack of dry" - again, you may have underpitched.

Finally, what is the gravity now? it might not be stuck - it might be finished.

So, more info please!

Cheers,

I used a belgian wit liquid yeast, but admittedly the package was not fully inflated...

The dry yeast was for the same thing. I don't remember which one that was...

...I should write this stuff down...

Yeah we don't know if you have a stuck fermentation or not without knowing a few things:

1) The Original Gravity of the beer. Always take a hydrometer reading of the wort once it reaches pitching temperature. This lets us know how much dissolved sugar is in the wort before fermentation.
2) The current gravity of the beer (or Finished Gravity). This lets us know how much sugar the yeast has consumed and if it really is finished fermenting or not.

This requires a $10 investment in a glass hydrometer from your LHBS. Pick one or two of them up (you'll break one eventually, trust me) and use them when you brew. Take measurements and write them down of the gravity readings. This the only way to really know if your beer is finished fermenting and/or if you have a stuck fermentation.

Now, to address your problem, you have a few choices:

1) Ride it out. Relax, have a homebrew and wait a full three weeks. This will only improve your beer and won't hurt a thing but your patience. It won't hurt your beer to let it sit in the primary fermenter for up to six weeks or even longer. Three weeks generally woks o.k. for about 80% of the ale styles out there but again, it's better to have a hydrometer.

2) Pitch another packet/vial of yeast into the wort/beer. Try to do it so that you won't disturb the beer much. Open the lid, toss in the yeast, re-seal the lid. That's it. Then, see option #1 and let it ride a full three weeks or more.

For the life of me I can't figure out how to read a hydrometer. That being said, was at 70 SP. GR for the original gravity.

*EDIT*

After watching a video just now, the OG was at 1.070 right after I chilled it from the boil, and transferred it into the primary.

With an OG of 1.070 it sounds like you might have underpitched your yeast a little. It also leads me to believe this when you say the extra yeast helped get it going. Thats not an issue, it just takes a little longer for the yeast to get going. Be patient, wait it out at least 2 weeks before you rack to secondary, and in the mean time do some studying on starters. Starters will help in two ways: checking your yeast viability and making sure its healthy, and also getting your yeast pumped up for the task ahead like a warmup exercise. One good tip for starters: if you have extra sanitized bottles around, brew a 1-2 gallon wort with pale extract so it has an OG between 1.040-1.050. Fill your bottles roughly 2/3 up, cap them, and put them in a fridge. Now when you plan to brew, pull one out a few days early, let it warm up, pitch your yeast, airlock it, and youre done! Starters on the go!

Full disclosure is that there is no way to tell whether a fermentation is stuck or not by just looking at it (or even the airlock). You would have to draw out a sample and measure it's gravity. Give it another day or two then take another sample. If it moved, it's still fermenting. Your final gravity that it will stop at may be higher or lower than the estimate (yeast-attenuation-% x OG).

Some take aways from this:
1. Trust the hydrometer more than the airlock
2. The krausen crash is not the end of fermentation. Fermentation typically continues after this happens... your beer becoming clear would be a better indicator (but not truly reliable)
3. Relax and don't worry about it. Unless you are using a tempermental strain like WyYeast Belgium Saison, you typically don't have to do anything to get it to finish out. Or if you are using old yeast, but you can typically tell if it's still viable when you make a starter (don't worry about this for now though, just enjoy the level of brewing that you are currently at).

Cheers!

Maynardtl8,

You typically don't want to airlock a starter. You actually want the oxygen for yeast growth. You don't have to worry about byproducts because you should pour off the "beer" part of the starter anyways. Just cover it with a papertowel and rubberband (tin foil loosely on top of that if you are really paranoid).

EDIT: I misread. My apology.

Dont forget to chill your wort before you bottle it too, of course.

Marvaden, when you shake the bottle to aerate it prior to pitching the yeast, wont that suffice for the yeasts oxygen needs?

Best yeast growth (as has been cited other areas of this forum) happens when there is continuous aeration of the starter. You also tend to not do any type of temperature controls for starters (including for lagers).

I had bought an Erlenmeyer flask for using with my stir plate, but this is not completely necessary. You can just walk by your starter once a while and whirl it about and get a bit more oxygen in there. The yeast will be producing enough CO2 to push out any baddies, so the purpose of covering the starter is more to keep dust/hairs/etc out.

But, we're getting off topic here. Just search the forums here or on youtube for information about starters.

Cheers!

Scottwhobrews said:

I made a wheat with Fuggles and crystal loose willamatte hops. Then I boiled corriander, cinnamon sticks, and cherry puree during the last 15.

I pitched a WyYeast into the bucket, but nothing happened for well over 48 hours. I repitched a small package of dry yeast, and that got the air lock bubbling for about a day and a half.

Now it's stopped.

What do I do next? Is it dead? should I pitch yeast again?

HALP!

Click to expand...

I usually just taste the beer to see if it is still sweet in a case like this. If it is still sweet then it cold be stuck or just fermenting really slowly. If it isn't sweet I would think that it could be complete and not stuck.

Also, I have noticed others talking about stirring a starter to oxygenate. This doesn't make sense to me. I always understood that stirring allows more of the yeast to be in contact with the fermentable sugars instead of just the cells on the top of the yeast layer doing to the fermenting. Once the fermentation starts in the starter I would think that the starter is basically full of c02, so stirring wouldn't oxygenate since the starter is full of c02.

Maybe someone else can chime in on this since this is just what makes sense to me and I may easily be wrong. One thing I do know is that stirring the starter does help no matter what the hell is actually happening from the stirring.

Good luck and report back what the beer tastes like!

Stirring the starter would only help oxygenate it if there isn't an airlock. Yeast uses oxygen during its reproduction phase, which is why a lot of brewers try to get some extra oxygen into the wort before pitching the yeast.

Back to topic, I am guessing OP saw the Krausen crash, which does not mean it's stuck. Fermentation does not stop when visible indicators have speed. He should wait it out, relax, and have a good drink.

Cheers

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Not sure you should have boiled that cherry puree, boiling fruit is going to cause the pectin to gel...like making jam or jelly. That could interfere with your yeast if they become coated with pectin....it's like fining with gelatin right off the bat.