Slow or stuck fermentation - should I be worried?

Hello all!
I brewed a porter on Sunday and the fermentation has never really taken off.

For my yeast, I'm using White Labs-WLP002 English Ale Yeast. I made a starter for it and it seemed to be doing pretty well (a good foam on top). When I pitched it, though, I didn't shake it as vigorously as I probably should have, so a lot of the clumps of yeast at the bottom didn't make it into the carboy.

I shook the carboy up well though, before I closed it.

It was probably a day and a half before I saw any activity. At the height of fermentation, there was probably 3/4" of Krausen on top, that has since gone away. Usually, fementations for me are much more vigorous with foam coming through the blow-off. This one, the foam never even got close to the top of the carboy.

I checked White Lab's site, and they said that this particular yeast tends to settle, so you need to sometimes stir things up to get things going. So last night, I went ahead and swirled it around a good bit. This morning, though, fermentation is not very noticable at all -- the airlock bubbles once a minute or so and there's not much on the surface of the beer at all now.

My questions:
-Are things ok -- is it just an unusual fermentation due to the yeast?
-Is there something I should do -- swirl it again? Pitch more yeast?

Thanks for any ideas!

It sounds fine. What yeast do you typically use? Some yeast, Wyeast American Ale being my favorite, ferment very vigorously. They usually produce lots of krausen. Other yeast (like your English Ale) produce little to none. Leave it in the fermenter for at least 3 weeks. Take a few gravity readings at that point and if it's still high, let us know.

zipr said:

Usually, fementations for me are much more vigorous with foam coming through the blow-off. This one, the foam never even got close to the top of the carboy.

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First off I don't see you mentioning anything about gravity readings, just going by "visual cues." That's NOT the best way to tell what is going on with your beer.

The only way to truly know what is going on in your fermenter is with your hydrometer. Like I said here in my blog, which I encourage you to read, Think evaluation before action you sure as HELL wouldn't want a doctor to start cutting on you unless he used the proper diagnostic instuments like x-rays first, right? You wouldn't want him to just take a look in your eyes briefly and say "I'm cutting into your chest first thing in the morning." You would want them to use the right diagnostic tools before the slice and dice, right? You'd cry malpractice, I would hope, if they didn't say they were sending you for an MRI and other things before going in....

Thinking about "doing anything" without taking a hydrometer reading is tantamount to the doctor deciding to cut you open without running any diagnostic tests.

Fermentation is not always "dynamic," just because you don't SEE anything happening, doesn't mean that any-thing's wrong,, and also doesn't mean that the yeast are still not working diligently away, doing what they've been doing for over 4,000 years..

And just because the biggest "push" of fermentation is over where the yeast aren't throwing off a ton of co2 and blipping the airlock, and even that the krausen has fallen, doesn't meant that fermentation isn't still chugging away, just slowly. Or at the minimum the yeast aren't cleaning up the byproducts.

But you won't know unless you check the gravity.

Secondly, Just because you "have never had this happen before" doesn't mean that the yeast are doing anything wrong. It just means that you haven't experienced one of the infinite NORMAL behaviors that living organisms, living wildcards, are capable of.

you can't compare one brew to another. No two fermentations are exactly the same.

When we are dealing with living creatures, there is a wild card factor in play..Just like with other animals, including humans...No two behave the same.

You can split a batch in half put them in 2 identical carboys, and pitch equal amounts of yeast from the same starter...and have them act completely differently...for some reason on a subatomic level...think about it...yeasties are small...1 degree difference in temp to us, could be a 50 degree difference to them...one fermenter can be a couple degrees warmer because it's closer to a vent all the way across the room and the yeasties take off...

Someone, Grinder I think posted a pic once of 2 carboys touching each other, and one one of the carboys the krausen had formed only on the side that touched the other carboy...probably reacting to the heat of the first fermentation....but it was like symbiotic or something...

With living micro-organisms there is always a wildcard factor in play...and yet the yeast rarely lets us down. So it is best just to rdwhahb and trust that they know to what they are doing.

Don't assume the worst with the yeast, realize that they've been making beer since long before our great great great grandfather copped his first buzz from a 40 of mickey's out back of the highschool, so they are the experts.

Yeasts are like teenagers, swmbos, and humans in general, they have their own individual way of doing things.

I took a reading this morning -- 1.019. So it look like things may be ok after all.

zipr said:

I took a reading this morning -- 1.019. So it look like things may be ok after all.

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It usually is, that's why I suggest people use their hydrometer whenever there's a doubt, even before starting a thread. It saves you a lot of stress.