Hello all. Still a beginner, I am faced for the first time with something that could be stuck fermentation, and would like to get advised from more experienced people. Here is the situation:
Brewed 8L of ale split into 2 demi johns.
0.5kg of Pilsner malt
0.5kg of Wheat malt
mash for 1h40 at 65C
200g of honey 10 minutes before end of boil
orange zest and cinamon in boil and fermenter
OG with all that: 1.034 (quite low I know... but miscalculated my malt amount and decided to try and ferment it anyway)
Pitched half a pack of Mangrove Jack M21 in each demi john on 4L of wort. Wort was probably around 30-35C when I pitched. Reduced temperature to around 18 in water bath afterwards.
Started nicely overnight, and continued bubbling (but less than my previous batches) for 2 days, and now no activity at all. Krausen disappeared. I raised temperature to 21C, but still stuck, might try to raise to 25 as this is the limit of the yeast, but don't want off flavours either.
I know a few stuff were not ideal:
-too little malt, therefore low OG (I aimed for 1.045)
-picthed too high? not rehydrated?
-not enough oxygen? (I didn't really actively aerate the wort, but never did so with M84 yeast in my previous batches and had no problem)
What do you think happened? After reading around, I think of a few thing that could've happened, but don't know if it's true:
- I killed most of the yest by picthing too high, th elittle that survived did half the job but there wasn't enough viable cells to finish it?
-there was too little malt and therefore not enough nutrients?
- there was not enough oxygen?
- something else? the yeast needs more oxygen or something else than M84, therefore why I didn't have problem before?
If nothing happens in the next day, I'll take another hydrometer reading, but I don't want to risk infection and waste too many samples as it is already a small batch.
Brewed 8L of ale split into 2 demi johns.
0.5kg of Pilsner malt
0.5kg of Wheat malt
mash for 1h40 at 65C
200g of honey 10 minutes before end of boil
orange zest and cinamon in boil and fermenter
OG with all that: 1.034 (quite low I know... but miscalculated my malt amount and decided to try and ferment it anyway)
Pitched half a pack of Mangrove Jack M21 in each demi john on 4L of wort. Wort was probably around 30-35C when I pitched. Reduced temperature to around 18 in water bath afterwards.
Started nicely overnight, and continued bubbling (but less than my previous batches) for 2 days, and now no activity at all. Krausen disappeared. I raised temperature to 21C, but still stuck, might try to raise to 25 as this is the limit of the yeast, but don't want off flavours either.
I know a few stuff were not ideal:
-too little malt, therefore low OG (I aimed for 1.045)
-picthed too high? not rehydrated?
-not enough oxygen? (I didn't really actively aerate the wort, but never did so with M84 yeast in my previous batches and had no problem)
What do you think happened? After reading around, I think of a few thing that could've happened, but don't know if it's true:
- I killed most of the yest by picthing too high, th elittle that survived did half the job but there wasn't enough viable cells to finish it?
-there was too little malt and therefore not enough nutrients?
- there was not enough oxygen?
- something else? the yeast needs more oxygen or something else than M84, therefore why I didn't have problem before?
If nothing happens in the next day, I'll take another hydrometer reading, but I don't want to risk infection and waste too many samples as it is already a small batch.