Need some advice....

Ok, so I know I'm just yet another newbie brewer worrying about stalled fermentation. BUT, I would really appreciate some advice.......or maybe I just need someone to talk me down

Brewing an Imperial Red OG of 1.058. Brewed and pitched Saturday afternoon (1 packet of dry yeast, rehydrated) and by Sunday night (about 30 hours later) there was some airlock activity and obviously extra heat from fermentation (room temp=70f, but bucket temp was up to 75f). It wasn't very vigorous. Not as active as my last one (a cream ale, my first brew), but there was definitely some activity.

But by Monday morning, NOTHING. No airlock activity, temperature totally dropped (down to 70f, room temp). Now its Tuesday night, still not ONE bubble in site for any length of time.

.......I know, I know......the airlock is not a proper fermentation gauge. So I took a hydro reading. Current gravity is 1.028. My TG is 1.012.

Seems like a long was to go still with fermentation activity seemingly so low. Do you think with no visible airlock or temperature activity, it still could be fermenting enough to get to my TG?

Thinking I'll take another hydro reading in a week or so, and if there is no progress with the gravity, I'll re-pitch.

What do you think?

Thanks for listening to another newbie pay too close attention during fermentation.

It's great to have a place to talk and read about this stuff, because my wife is definitely getting tried of me talking about home brew.

Fairly newbie here too, but given your gravity readings, it sounds like you've got plenty of activity. The CO2 must be escaping somewhere besides the airlock.

75 is too high for most beers but it sounds like your beer is fermenting, i doubt you'll need to repitch.

Is this an extract brew? What strain of yeast? Could have been a pack of half dead yeast. How did you rehydrate? I always just pitch the dry yeast with out issue.

My initial opinion is that 1.028 is too high to expect it to get down to 1.012, but it may be worth waiting to see. I think even down to 1.017 or so might be okay for a Red. Someone else may have some ideas to try and restart fermentation without pitching more yeast?

You could gently swirl the fermenter around and hope you can suspend some of the yeast cake without introduction oxygen (swirls, no shaking). I had sat at 1.020 for a bit on one of my first brews and did this and got me to 1.018

An increase of five degrees over ambient on the outside of a carboy/bucket means that you had quite a few more degrees inside which means your fermentation was very active. So you might have air leak and hence some of the CO2 is bypassing your air lock hence why you think it is not happening as quickly as the last brew(this is why we say don't trust the airlock). The temp dropping down does mean that the fermentation has slowed down but not stopped chances are in a few days it will have dropped to your target FG. Remember also that this is not an exact science so as long as it is close to your FG (anywhere around 1.015) you don't have a problem.

Also fermentation is not said to be stopped until you have consecutive reading with the same SG reading.

Clem

So let's say I take a hydro reading again in a week or two and it's still the same....or it's changed a little, but still nowhere near my TG.

Could I re-pitch at that point? Any down side to re-pitching and giving it a little extra time (besides the small extra cost of yeast)?

It's hard to tell if you should repitch with the info given.

What was your recipe?

It was a partial mash kit from my LHBS. Didn't give lots of specifics of amounts, just what it contained:

Pale and Wheat malt extract.
Crystal and Carafa malts
High alfa Columbus hops
Nottingham Ale yeast

I've had kits with no starters get stuck at 1.020, so have many others from what I've read. See if it levels off at 1.020, if it does, leave it there for a bit then bottle.

3 days to go from 1.058 to 1.028. Sounds like it is working fine. Temperature drop is probably due to bulk of fermentation being done and activity slowing down.

Leave it a while and take another reading. Being a partial mash, the FG will depend a lot on the temperature you mashed at, and how well you held the temperature.

I've dealt with three stuck brews and I have read a lot about it and I have tried all the different solutions and I can give you the logic of each one. Now you are not stuck yet and until you take readings you can alleviate your fears but gently swirling your carboy/bucket, not enough to splash the wort as you don't want to introduce O2 (although head space is all CO2 at the moment, so it is really unlikely). This will get the yeast back into suspension where they are able to eat the sugars, if they are flocked out on the bottom they can't do anything for you.

So next if you find you are stuck at a higher FG than you think you are meant to have then you have a couple of options. First you want to find if you really are stuck, to do this you can perform a Forced Fermentation Test (FFT). This involves getting a sample of wort and adding a massive amount of yeast 1/4 packet dry yeast and lots of O2 to the sample (via stir plate or shaking it with O2 in the head space or just shake if you don't have O2). In a couple of days take SG reading of this sample. The theory is you are adding optimum conditions for the yeast to eat every bit of sugar in your beer that can be eaten. So if the SG reading drops ie it is lower than the stuck brew SG then some fermentation is still to happen in your wort and you have a yeast problem. In the FFT SG test is the same as the Stuck brew then your wort is not fermentable, suspect extract, bad mash temps or scalded wort in the boil, basically it is what it is nothing can be done with it, makes great beer batter.

So if your beer is fermentable and you need to get more yeast to the job we have to look at the situation. You can't add more O2 to the brew as their is not enough remaining sugars to completely scrub the O2 from the wort in the fermentation process. There is only two ways that I consider to be viable fixes

1) Make another identical batch of beer with better yeast and O2 so it does not stick and then pitch the stuck brew on to the cake. This will work as you have trillions of healthy yeast cells to ferment the brew and the just did a brew just like the one you have a problem with so they will go straight to work fixing you problem.

2) Make a large starter approx 1 gallon, add some DME solution to the wort while you add the large starter that is at high krausen. The simple sugar will give the yeast something easy to eat and then once they have consumed that they will eat the more complex sugars that are remaining in your brew causing that high SG reading. Without the simple sugars the yeast in the starter have to go straight to eating complex sugars and they might just give up and go to sleep.

Some people try to add packets of dry yeast and some report success other including myself have had not joy. I would say if you are just a few points off then you can try this method as a quick fix. However like quick fixes they typically don't work.

Like I said at the beginning of this war and peace your not stuck yet and try swirling it might just avoid the problem in the first place.

Clem