Stuck fermentation... Why?

It has to have unfermentables in it. Yeast will eat fermentable sugar. That's why I suggest the enzyme, which will convert dextrins

For sure don't dump it. Some of my best brews started as under-achievers. Here's what I did for three of them:

1. Added champagne yeast to a dunkelweisen = had a little clove taste but was still to style and great overall.

2. Pitched Brett C to a Scottish ale and turned it into my first sour. Two years old now and it its tasting pretty good!

3. Transferred a brown ale on top of a saison yeast cake that just finished after 5 days of fermenting (so was still semi-active). Baked that one at 80F and it turned out phenomenal!

Let's hear it for franken-brews!

zendog, I can hear the crowd forming, sharpening their pitchforks and lighting their torches now...

EC-1118 could help, but I don't think it will do all that much. I tried that in one of my early batches (my first old ale) and it didn't do squat for fermenting.

I'm not a fan (at all) of sours, so doing that to a Scottish ale just feels wrong.

Did you actually 'bake' the brown ale or did it just ferment HOT??

highgravitybacon said:

Transfer it to a secondary. Make a new starter of your choice. wlp001 or whatever. Aerate starter. It can be a quart starter. Stir it as often as you can if no stirplate. Once the starter is at peak activity, pitch it.

You cannot just toss inactive yeast in. They will fall out. Raise temp 2-3 degrees.

Doing these things will probably fix it.

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I never tossed any inactive yeast in it... They ate sugar, just not enough...

Golddiggie said:

zendog, I can hear the crowd forming, sharpening their pitchforks and lighting their torches now...

EC-1118 could help, but I don't think it will do all that much. I tried that in one of my early batches (my first old ale) and it didn't do squat for fermenting.

I'm not a fan (at all) of sours, so doing that to a Scottish ale just feels wrong.

Did you actually 'bake' the brown ale or did it just ferment HOT??

Click to expand...

Yeah, I've been accused of heresy before, then people try my beers and let me live another day!

'Baked' is my euphemism for hot ferments. I brought the gravity down for the brown ale w/ saison yeast (WLP565) at 80 because that's where it performs well. Was it still a nut brown ale? No, but it was definitely quaffable.

The methods I presented will not rescue a stalled fermentation and end up with the intended beer style. It will turn the beer into uncharted territory for sure. But to me it is better than drinking a cloyingly sweet malt soup or worse yet, dumping the beer which is indeed heresy! Maybe someday I will try the enzyme trick...

Happy brewing!

Just thiefed a sample, looking like it is about 1.019 right now. I've got an amber ale sitting on a yeast cake of 1272 in primary, might rack it over and move one fermenter of brown on top of that yeast cake next weekend to see if I can coax any more fermentation out of it.

HollisBT said:

Just thiefed a sample, looking like it is about 1.019 right now. I've got an amber ale sitting on a yeast cake of 1272 in primary, might rack it over and move one fermenter of brown on top of that yeast cake next weekend to see if I can coax any more fermentation out of it.

Click to expand...

Next time try a fast ferment test. Then you will know if it is wort or yeast.

http://www.braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Fast_Ferment_Test