For my second brew I brewed the double chocolate stout extract kit from Austin HomeBrew Supply. The recipe sheet stated that the og should be be 1.056, mine was around 1.065, and it has the fg as as 1.012 and mine is 1.020. It's been in the primary for 4 weeks now and the gravity hasn't moved for a week, it's been fermenting at 66 degrees. Do I have a stuck fermentation? Should I just go ahead and bottle or repitch and try to get the gravity lower? Thanks in advance for the help.
FG too high??
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High OG could be a result of improperly mixed top off water. I've done it before.
You could give the fermenter a bit of a swirl to see if you can wake the yeast up and then measure it again in a week. You should be okay at 66 degrees for temperature, but you could warm it up a little to see if that kickstarts anything. If not, and the gravity stays at 1.020, after several readings on successive days, I'd probably bottle it.
What yeast was this?
You could give the fermenter a bit of a swirl to see if you can wake the yeast up and then measure it again in a week. You should be okay at 66 degrees for temperature, but you could warm it up a little to see if that kickstarts anything. If not, and the gravity stays at 1.020, after several readings on successive days, I'd probably bottle it.
What yeast was this?
Did you make a starter for the yeast or just pitch the pack?
Assuming your OG was actually 1.056, and that the 1.065 reading was the result of some other issue, your sitting at about 63% attenuation and 4.8% ABV.
If it has really been stuck for this long, it might have given its all. You may just have to think about bottling at this point.
Assuming your OG was actually 1.056, and that the 1.065 reading was the result of some other issue, your sitting at about 63% attenuation and 4.8% ABV.
If it has really been stuck for this long, it might have given its all. You may just have to think about bottling at this point.
I've had the same issue with some extract beers. I'm still not sure why- I've tried using more attenuative yeast strains, jostling the primary, etc, and nothing seemed to help. I seemed to be a victim of the "1.020 curse". If it's stable, and not changing at all and enough time has lapsed, it's done. You can bottle it and be safe.
I just pitched the pack, I'm going to be making starters for future batches.
I think I am just going to go ahead and bottle it, did you make starters for your brews that got stuck at 1.020?
It's also possible that your hydrometer is inaccurate. Try taking a reading of water. If your hydrometer reads > 1.000, subtract the difference between what you read and 1.000 from your FG reading.
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Yup, so you got down to 1.018
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Oops. I should have said you got your gravity down to 1.022 
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Jake_Robbo
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Is the 1.020 curse a thing? I have done 7 batches now and can’t get it under 1.020? Tried a heat regulated fermentation chamber, adding sugars, making sure everything was fully dissolved before pitching and still haven’t had any luck. They do taste a little sweet though so I figured it must not have finished fermenting completely. Did yours have a sweeter taste to them?
Tall_Yotie
Well-Known Member
You are replying to an 11 year old message, so their situation has probably changed.
Are you using Extract? Extract brews tend to end at a higher FG, especially if there is any scorching.
What is your attenuation? FG doesn't tell you how good your fermentation was without knowing OG.
Are you giving the beer time to fully ferment, or just going with a recipe's time and assuming it is done?
Yes, it’s a real thing! I know some people have had better luck with extract, but it happened to me often enough that I just dealt with it.
I tried using different extracts and doing partial mashes, and that helped but I had a ton of them stop at 1.020.
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