Non-responsive yeast

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Shred

Former Microbrewery Founder & Pro Brewer
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I had a thread up about a week ago about my mocha stout that had an OG of 1.044, showed no real activity in the airlock for a few days and then read 1.022 as it went into the secondary.

I was concerned, but a few bubbles would pop up here and there in the secondary, so I'd hoped it would continue to ferment.

I took a reading last night and it was still around 1.022 after a week in the secondary. It tastes okay, but I'm wondering if I should pitch some more yeast to finish the fermentation and for carbing???

I'm thinking the yeast (which came with a stout extract kit) was probably old.
 
No thoughts on this? Am I going to risk bottle bombs (or flat beer with the non-responsive yeast) if I bottle at 1.022?
 
Maybe, I had a Saison yeast that stalled at .035 and I went ahead and bottled it. I did end up with a couple bottle bombs, not many but a few. The problem there was that the beer wasn't good at all. I was way too sweet for my liking. 2 things can cause this, yeast stall or what's left is unfermentables. What was your targeted FG?

You've got 2 routes that you can go to avoid bottle bombs:
1)pitch some champagne yeast to finish off fermentation
2)bottle the beers and once it has reached the carb level you are looking for, cold crash all the bottles.
 
Target is 1.012. I think I'll give the champagne yeast a shot. Maybe just a half "dose" to minimize the risk of a big flavor change. It doesn't taste terrible now, just a bit metallic.
 
That's the great thing about champagne yeast, it won't affect the flavor of the final product.
 
Nice. I'll give it a shot on Tuesday (when my LHBS is open). Hopefully it doesn't oxidize in that time... I'm sure I lost the CO2 blanket when I opened it to get my last hydrometer reading.
 
Shred said:
Nice. I'll give it a shot on Tuesday (when my LHBS is open). Hopefully it doesn't oxidize in that time... I'm sure I lost the CO2 blanket when I opened it to get my last hydrometer reading.

The CO2 blanket might be more resilient than you realize. Unless you really fan, agitate or blow on it, the CO2 will stay pooled on top of your beer for a long time. Below is a little video demo I made or the CO2 in a bucket that my blow off was venting to. Keep in mind that I had removed the blow off tube hours before and this had been sitting uncovered.

[ame]http://youtu.be/UIv_n0Fj_q4[/ame]
 
Hmm.. that's pretty cool, actually. I have it in a 6-gallon carboy with maybe a half gallon of headroom. With that small opening, maybe I do still have a blanket.
 
So, now my question is should I agitate before repitching?
 
Personally, given your Gravity and your target final (and your OG) I'd not agitate it, but just put the yeast in. What happens is that O2 is used for yeast growth, but if it is done later in a brew it will alow the yeast to consume the alcohol to co2 and h2o and leave no alcohol (amoung other undesirable results). If your OG was 1.080 and your current was 1.060, I'd definatly agitate/oxygenate. but you are over 50% sugar fermented, so I'd really avoid unneeded surface agitation. - Hydro readings count as needed fwiw.


BTW, how many lb of fermentables (dme/lme/sugars) did your recipe have? Not steeping grains those are non fermentables.
 
NO. That would oxidize the beer.

Exactly!

I would guess that the champagne yeast is one that doesn't require aeration.

In this case, it doesn't. If you were using it to make wine, and putting it into an OG situation, it would benifit from aeration.

AGAIN, in this case, aeration is really oxidation, and can only hurt.
 
based on your numbers, 7.3lb LME with an og of 1.044 should have a start volume of 6.1g (pppg lme assumed 37). If your starting volume was closer to 5.25g then OG should have been 1.051. If you topped off, you might have ended up with some decrease in the mix (a problem for measuring, but not for fermenting). When adding top off water it is common for the water to float on the wort concentrate, and good mixing is required to get the 2 layers to be more uniform.

OTOH, maybe you did start w/6 gallons. >shrgg< I think Champainge yeast and some time are your best bet. Don't aerate/agitate the surface. Let us know how it goes
 
Before you go repitching or adding champagne yeast, I would like to ask a few questions, and make a suggestion.

1) What was your fermenting temperature? How did this compare to the operating temperature of the yeast?

2) Have you tried simply putting the beer in a warmer area, and GENTLY swirling it to try to get some more yeast in suspension and working again? Generally, this will do the trick without having to add more yeast, even if you're already in secondary (there are plenty of yeast left over!)

I never recommend repitching ANY yeast, much less a different strain, until those things have been checked and tried.
 
I started with 6 gallons. The yeast was pitched at around 70* and kept consistently between 64-68* throughout primary. The swirling idea is kinda what happened when I racked to the secondary. That's when I saw a little more minor activity in the airlock... not enough to solve the issue, however.

I'm pretty sure the yeast I used was just unhealthy and/or too old. It came with a LME kit so who knows what it was exposed to throughout it's transport and shelf life.

I just tested again - no change so, I pitched the champagne yeast. Now my concern is that I may want to swap out the airlock for a blowoff hose. The carboy has limited headroom.
 
I had a Saison yeast that stalled at .035...

I had the same thing happen to me...I was brewing a Saison with Wyeast 3724. It stalled out so I tried warming it WAY up to +/- 85 degrees, which is acceptable with this yeast strain. I saw an increase in airlock bubbles for a while, but the gravity was still way too high...somewhere in the high 20's.

(A little background info: this was from a 12 gal batch split between 2 fermenters; I used a diffferent yeast (3711) in the other fermenter and it was down somewhere around 1.003 by this time.)

Anyway, at this point, the beer had been in primary for a month or so. I decided to rack the stalled batch to secondary and pitch some US-05. I figured I should make a starter, or at least rehydrate it (I think I read somewhere that dry yeast has a hard time rehydrating if there is alcohol present) but I pitched it directly - I had other things going on. Needless to say, after several days...no activity. I didn't have any more yeast in the fridge, so I made a starter and used my wine thief to grab some wort out of another batch I had going - a Rosemary IPA using Wyeast 1098. After a day or so the starter was chugging along, so I pitched it to the stalled Saison. Within a day, the airlock was bubbling away. It is still in the fermenter, but I'm guessing that it will ferment down to an acceptable level (probably not as low as I'd like for a saison, but I bet it will be ok.)

Shred, I apologize for the rambling, but what I was getting at was if you don't see a lot of activity, you might think about making a starter - this was necessary with the beer yeast I was using, but maybe you don't need to with the champagne yeast. Does anyone know? Is a starter necessary with dry champagne yeast, or will it hydrate properly if pitched directly to a wort that already contains alcohol? Good luck with your beer!:mug:
 
Appreciate the info. I rehydrated according to the yeast instructions (in 40 degree tap water) and pitched. I don't see any obvious activity, but I put a big blow-off tube in place of the air lock, so it's possible the yeast is doing it's thing and I just can't see the signs. I'll give it another test this weekend. If the gravity still hasn't moved, I may just bottle it as-is and hope it carbs properly.
 
You should still be able to see signs of fermentation if you're using a blowoff tube. Do you have a good seal on the tube and have it run down into a container of sanitizer? If so, you should still see bubbles, I would think. Please keep us updated - if the champagne yeast works well for you, I'm going to buy a couple of packets to keep around for when I run into stuck fermentations.
 
So if your yeast isn't pitching I'd suggest boiling a 1/2lb or up to 1lb of DME once boiled bring to room temp add your liquid yeast of choice and top with bubbler and set aside for 3-5 days then add it to your wort and that should do the trick ....when in doubt use a yeast starter!!!
 
No real signs of activity. The blow off is in a separate container with starsan. I'm going to take another hydrometer reading tonight.

If it hasn't improved, I guess I'll have no choice but to use a yeast starter.

Not looking like this one will be ready for St Patty's Day.
 
Went to my LHBS today and chatted with the guys there. They were a bit stumped by this one as well, but our best guess is that the dark malt I used in addition to the stout kit has fewer fermentables than anticipated and/or my hydrometer could be off. I need to test it in plain water to tell for sure.

The fact that it doesn't taste at all sweet is really suspect.

As it stands now, I'll be bottling this tomorrow and using less priming sugar than I might otherwise use (on account of the starving champagne yeast getting pissed and trying to blow up all my bottles).
 
So - I popped one of these in the fridge last night after a week of bottle conditioning. Despite, obviously, being premature, it has started to carb nicely and really tastes darn good for just 1 week. Not sure what the issue was, but it doesn't seem to be having a negative impact on the final product at all. It's got a nice rich color and all the mocha-goodness I was hoping for.

Can't wait to taste it again in a few weeks!

dXfzTgO.jpg
 
Hey Shred,

I'm glad to hear that your beer is tasting good after 1 week in the bottle. Did you check your hydrometer w/ water to check its calibration? What was your gravity when you bottled - did the champagne yeast help you out?
 
I did test it in water and it read 1.000. The champagne yeast didn't seem to do much but also didn't hurt the flavor. The FG was 1.020. I guess it was just that the dark LME I used just wasn't as fermentable as I'd expected.
 
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