Stuck Fermentation 1.030

I pitched some White Labs Belgian Golden Ale Yeast in a belgian pale ale with an OG of 1.070. I went away for a few days and when I took a Hydrometer reading tonight it is still at 1.030.

Should I pitch another vial of the same yeast? Do I need to make a starter? Any advice would be appreciated, I thought this batch had potential and am hoping to salvage it.

How long is "a few days?" Starting at a high OG, it could take awhile to finish.

My Blue moon clone started at 1.072 9 days ago and it's only down to 1.023. The krasen ring is amazing and it's still chugging along. Give it more time.

before you do anything drastic, just swirl it around and let the yeast wake up. that's if you take another reading in a couple days and the reading is the same

Sorry, 5 days to be specific. When I left it was bubbling happily, the temp dropped in the house so I don't know if the yeast was doing it's thing but went dormant, because there were no bubbles in the airlock which was why I measured and found it at 1.030.

no airlock activity? there are a million posts on here about that. that means very little

You need to wait at least 2 weeks before any concern is warranted. The bubbling of the airlock (or lack thereof) is not an accurate gauge of fermentation.

Good to know. I assumed if there was no airlock activity , CO2 was no longer being released because fermentation had ceased.

I am a novice brewer, in my other 5-6 batches fermentation had finished when airlock activity was done.

I turned the heat on low overnight and the fermenting bucket warmed back up from 63 to 68. Now there is a bubble about every minute in the airlock.

I know it was just mentioned the airlock is an unreliable guide, but it's a plastic bucket so I'm not sure there's any other way to monitor progress other than taking a hydrometer reading every day but i'm afraid of taking the top off the fermenting bucket too many times.

TheMagnanimous said:

Good to know. I assumed if there was no airlock activity , CO2 was no longer being released because fermentation had ceased.

I am a novice brewer, in my other 5-6 batches fermentation had finished when airlock activity was done.

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Actually, your fermentation was not finished when airlock activity had ceased but the yeast had ended their sugar eating orgy and were settling down to do some real work. That part of the fermentation is just as important as the very active phase and makes the end product taste much better.

In most cases, for standard gravity beers, the best thing to do is to leave it alone for 3 weeks. Higher gravity beers need more time. As mentioned, the yeast will improve the beer even if active fermentation (airlock activity) has finished. It is also important to note that you could have an active fermentation and no bubbling.

In essence: Leave it alone for 3-4 weeks at controlled temps, then take a hydro reading. Hard to F it up this way, and it gives peace of mind.

My Blue moon clone started at 1.072...

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Not sure I would call that a Blue moon clone.

Sorry, I had to go there.

MachineShopBrewing said:

Not sure I would call that a Blue moon clone.

Sorry, I had to go there.

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hehe yea. Had the extra DME and no easy way to store it so IN it went. lol

So after another 2 weeks it finished at 1.018. Glad I left it alone.

nice. Congrats. My Blue moon is still sitting in primary as the new baby has taken up all my time. I love that brewing is a time forgiving hobby

Thanks, good luck with your blue moon clone. I agree it's hard to just leave it alone and give it time though.

Great and helpful thread here. I've been brewing a while and just recently bought a fancy instrument to measure Brix. I've noticed my batches are only in the 3.5-3.9% ABV range.

I have a stout right now that started at 1.060 and bubbled like crazy for 3 days. Now it is pretty dormant in the bubbler. I was getting concerned I was stuck after 4 days...what can I say I was being impatient. I measured after 4 days and it is at 1.034 (3.5%). I'm going to give it up to 2 weeks to see what it does. I'll continue to swirl the bucket daily just to move the yeast around. They are at 66-68F consistently.

TheMagnanimous - How would you describe the bubbling you saw after you let it sit? Did it go about every minute for the rest of the fermentation?

^ You shouldn't correlate airlock activity and fermentation, the airlock just releases excess air which could be caused by things other than a primary fermentation.

I'm hijacking this thread because im stuck at 1.030 right now and dont want to start a new thread on the topic.

I brewed a porter three weeks ago with an OG of 1.080 and mashed at 154. I've tried the move it to a warmer room and swirl the bucket to re-suspend the yeast. Ever since my first gravity ready of two weeks ago it hasnt budged at all. I pitched two packets of rehydrated Nottingham yeast. Any other suggestions?

Seems alot of this is going around. Another "I think my yeast went dormant am I screwed" thread

I got similar responses and have decided to leave it alone. I did check today with a refractometer and gravity has dropped a little more. So i'll let it go another week and chk gravity again.

Don't swirl it too early... I did that once after just a couple days of apparent inactivity and it exploded all over me lol... lost about a gallon and definitely hurt the beer.

jetmac said:

Seems alot of this is going around. Another "I think my yeast went dormant am I screwed" thread

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Thanks, jetmac.

Update: I didn't check gravity today after 8 1/2 days, but I have a drylock (not an airlock) and when I squeezed it, a gush of CO2 escaped. With that said and a krauzen(?) ring still there and yeast flocculating on top, I think I still have fermentation. Glad I didn't add that dry yeast.

I think I am supposed to wait until that yeast drops to the bottom then let them work the bottom for a while. So all is not lost.

This might have solved my dilemma of what I thought was a "stuck fermentation". After tasting the batch, I could definitely tell alcohol content was there...and well above the purported 3% according to my measurements.

I had given up the hunt on this one, ready to try again next time and keep note of any factor that might have caused the issue. Still, in the back of my mind, thinking that the measurements had to be off. I'm using a Hanna refractometer. How could it be wrong?! It's brand new, to boot.

While perusing Bobby_M's videos on his youtube channel, I found one comparing results from a hydrometer to those of a refractometer: . In it, he mentions that the alcohol in the final reading may skew the refractometer reading. And shows a spreadsheet from Morebeer.com that converts your refractometer reading to account for the alcohol present in the final reading.

When I plugged in my numbers again, the ABV jumped from 3% to almost 4.8%. Now that's closer to what I had anticipated. Thanks Bobby_M and Morebeer.com. Many of the doubts I had about my brewing process have been quelled. Cheers.