Stuck?

Hey all,

I've got an American Ale with S-04 in the bucket right now. It's been about a week since I pitched the yeast. My OG was 1.050 and right now it's sitting at 1.020. I'm not sure if it's stuck or just slowed down so last night I gently rocked the bucket for a minute to loosen some of the yeast cake from below.

I've been doing some research here and I found that if I rack the ale onto another yeast cake that has just finished it can really help un-stuck the stuck fermentation.

I want to see if I have this straight: My ale has a stout for a neighbor that's on deck to be bottled this weekend. If my gravity doesn't budge anymore by the weekend, should I simply bottle the stout, siphon the ale onto the stout cake and seal the deal?

Thanks!

Hmmmm, what was your recipe? Extract? All grain? Mash temp? Fermentation temp? I am used to S-04 finishing lower than that but I usually wait 3 weeks before I even check. My guess is time will fix it on it's own but if you want to post some more info we can probably help you more. Also, S-04 is an english strain, it makes a damn fine beer and will work just fine in an American Ale recipe but it is an English yeast.

S-04, 1 week. Should be lower than 1.020.

Possible problems: Too cold for the yeast or too many unfermentable sugars.

Go ahead and rack onto the other yeast cake. Should already have the S-04 character. Don't worry about any stout character carrying over; it will be such a small amount to be un-noticeable.

i would try other methods of unsticking the fermentation before racking an American Ale onto a Stout yeast cake. doing what your suggesting is ok for putting a dark beer on a lighter beer yeast cake not the other way around. nothing bad will happen but the lighter beer will pick up color from the now darker colored yeast.

I don't think you have a stuck fermentation. It's not as common as people think it is. I bet the beer is done.

Your attenuation is low, but it's not terrible. How does the beer taste? Is it sweet? That yeast will leave a tiny touch of sweetness in a finished beer. If it's very noticeably sweet, maybe you have a stuck fermentation. But my money is on "no way."

Thanks for all the input everyone

My recipe is as follows:

Modified American Ale (Change to English Ale?) 19L batch size

One 1.5kg tin of Morgans Lager malt extract
One 1.5kg tin of Morgans Amber malt extract

**250g of Crystal malts (EBC 55~85) This was only supposed to be for 20 minutes or so, but actual time ended up extending to 45 minutes... Did I raise my unfermentables too much?

12 AAU of bittering hops (38g of 9% AA Centennial hops)
5 AAUs of finishing hops (25g of 5.7% AA Cascade hops)
15g of Cascade hops, dry hopped (not yet)

Yeast: S-04 (11g)

Yeast went in at 30C but temps were quickly dropped to a stable 20-22 degrees where its been since.

Hope this helps. The smell of the beer was quite sweet. I hope I didn't over do it.

BTW, I was wickedly (yes, wickedly) impressed with S-04. It starts off quite quickly and strongly, but my junk at the bottom of the bucket is also impressive.

Update:

I just called my GF at home and she said that the bucket has resumed a little burping after a silence of 2 days, so methinks the gentle rousing might have worked. I'll measure my gravity Saturday. If it's about where I would like it, I'll toss me hops in, if it isn't I'll carefully rack it onto the stout cake.

Geppu said:

Update:

I just called my GF at home and she said that the bucket has resumed a little burping after a silence of 2 days, so methinks the gentle rousing might have worked. I'll measure my gravity Saturday. If it's about where I would like it, I'll toss me hops in, if it isn't I'll carefully rack it onto the stout cake.

Click to expand...

S-04 flocs like a ton of bricks, warm it up and rouse the yeast and it should get you down a little bit farther. BUT, extract batches tend not to be as fermentable as PM or AG batches so 1.020 is a perfectly acceptable FG in this case.

wyzazz said:

S-04 flocs like a ton of bricks, warm it up and rouse the yeast and it should get you down a little bit farther. BUT, extract batches tend not to be as fermentable as PM or AG batches so 1.020 is a perfectly acceptable FG in this case.

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've got it going through a slow warm up phase right now, I'm gonna bring temps up slowly over the next day, give it another swirl for a bit and then let 'er rest.

Will it be a little sweeter than anticipated if it doesnt drop much more?

I wouldn't say sweet, with an amber malt extract and that crystal you'll certainly have a bit of body.

Well, it should be interesting!

That's the fun of homebrewing!