Adding sugar

[Taka]

Hey guys, I have a question about adding more sugar to punch up an I.P.A.
I added 20 oz of amber agave nectar to my wort and the o.g. came out to 1.075 which was about what I was hoping for. I was going to do the standard 1-2-3. I didn't check after the first week and went ahead and racked to the secondary. The air lock seemed to pick up and so I gave it an extra week in the secondary. When I checked the reading after the 3 rd week it was at 1.040. My question is should I wait longer or re pitch some more yeast in?
Any help would be great.
Thanks

 

[cervezarara]

Check the usual suspects: Did you use a starter? What is fermentation temperature? Did you provide plenty of oxygen before the pitch? What type of yeast did you use? How old was the yeast?

Agave nectar is a blend of fructose and glucose, so it should ferment like simple sugar using S. cervesiae. With a medium high gravity beer like yours, a healthy population of yeast is recommended to prevent stalling (like you've apparently encountered.) Now that you've racked it to secondary, it might need more yeast to fully attenuate.

You can try swirling the beer to rouse the yeast. You can try to raise the temperature to encourage more fermentation. But if you pitched a low yeast count from an old vial or smack pack you may not have given the yeast the best conditions to fully attenuate. If you used dry yeast, the above recommendations might work. You can simply add more yeast and see what happens, too. Maybe a sachet of US-05?

 

[Taka]

It was dry yeast. I will try the swirl and raise the temp method first. Thanks for the swift reply and info.

 

[Calder]

Big question: Why did you rack to secondary when it was still at 1.040 (or maybe higher)?

With knowing absolutely nothing about this beer, my first though would be that you let it get too cold, the yeast worked for a while due to self heating, but slowed down as the alcohol went up. When it got too cold, the yeast went dormant and dropped. You then proceeded to rack to secondary leaving all the good yeast behind in the primary.

Never rack until you know the beer is finished.

 

[Taka]

It was probably higher and I just went on time eather than taking a reading. I know.... dumb thing to do. My question was how to fix it now. Lesson learned on racking too soon.

 

[Calder]

If you want help, we need more details.

What yeast?
What temperature did you ferment at?
What temperature is it at now?
Did you aerate well?
What yeast?
What OG?
What recipe (for all we know, you might have a ton of unfermentables in there)?
Anything else?

Everytime you move a beer, take a gravity reading. Then drink the sample. It is the only thing you have that can tell you how the ferment is going.

 

[sjbeerman]

The only thing you can do now is to make a small starter from liquid yeast then pitch the entire starter at the height of activity (~12-18h).