Is my yeast dead?

I brewed a caribou slobber extract kit three weeks ago and everything went fine on brew day. The OG was 1.052 which was pretty close to where it should have been. I left the fermentor in the basement where it has been pretty cool. I took a specific gravity reading last week and it was 1.021, and i just took one today and it was the same. I thought that the FG for caribou slobber was around 1.014. did something go wrong?

I could be wrong, but I think even with poor yeast, if there are any alive, they'll propagate to fill the correct volume of wort. Did you get Krausen? I'd say if you saw active fermentation then it should be ok, but may just need to sit a lot longer. What were your ambient temps at fermentation when you say pretty cool?

id say the temperatures were between mid fifties and low sixties.

Here's a couple of things you might want to do. First check the hydrometer to make sure it is calibrated OK. Put in distilled water at 60F, and make sure it measures 1.000. Tap water would work too, but distilled is preferred. Also, depending on the yeast strain and the initial health it's possible the yeast stalled out and need some coaxing (esp given the low basement temps). You can raise the temp and if that doesn't seem to get things going, you can rouse them with a gentle stir.

martinator35 said:

id say the temperatures were between mid fifties and low sixties.

Click to expand...

That's on the low end for some ale strains and on the very low end for most ale strains. The good news is that a low temp ferment for three weeks should make for a nice clean tasting beer. Raising the temp now to something like 66-68F to get to FG won't affect the flavor.

hex23 said:

here's a couple of things you might want to do. First check the hydrometer to make sure it is calibrated ok. Put in distilled water at 60f, and make sure it measures 1.000. Tap water would work too, but distilled is preferred. Also, depending on the yeast strain and the initial health it's possible the yeast stalled out and need some coaxing (esp given the low basement temps). You can raise the temp and if that doesn't seem to get things going, you can rouse them with a gentle stir.

Click to expand...

+1

Okay, update:

I checked the calibration of my hydrometer, it reads one or two thousandths too high. I brought the beer into my room where it was around 65-73 degrees F for about 5 days. i was hearing bubbling at the rate of one or two bubbles per hour. i took a hydrometer reading today and it reads the same! 1.021. is it time for me to bottle? or should i let the beer ferment longer?

Thanks for your responses!

let it go 3 to 5 more days and take anothe reading.

The bubbling was probably just off-gassing of CO2 since the warmer liquid won't hold as much C02, in other words, probably no further fermentation happened. It sounds like they yeast have definitely stalled out. You could try rousing them with a gentle stir, especially if the yeast have fully flocculated. If that doesn't work, there are more extreme measures (that I've never tried) like re-pitching, re-pitching with champagne yeast, or adding amylase enzyme, etc. However, that's probably going too far IMO. I doubt your at too much risk of bottle bombs. The only downside of stopping now and bottling is that the resulting beer would be a little sweeter than intended. If you taste it now and it's not cloying, I'd say go ahead and bottle.