More stuck fermentations

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conal

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I've taken a ten year hiatus from home brewing and have started with some extract, some all-grain, and a premade 23L bag of microbrew wort but I have not been able to get the fg for any below 1.022 ... Some eng pale ales, some American pale ales, and ipa, a red ale... All started between 50-52 and pitched more healthy rehydrated yeasts.. Then yeast starters.. Temp at steady 70 F but all turn out sugary and over fg ... All stopped at 22... What else can I try?
 
Agitation and splashing in the carboy. I roll it around and shake it back and forth for 10-15 minutes. Rocking it back and forth used to work 10 yrs ago when I had no problems... This is really baffling me...

I have a pale ale that stuck at 1.026 after three days.. Stuck there for a week and swishing it around gave me 1.022 by the 4 week mark. Tried it again but 8 weeks its still at 1.022 and the style recommended should be 1.016-18 at least!

Puzzled and sad,
 
You mentioned both rehydrated yeast and yeast starters. That meant that you rehydrated dry yeast and did a starter when you used liquid yeast on another batch, not that you did a starter on rehydrated dry yeast right?
 
Yes, I have tried a few different yeast methods but no improvements. I was trying to fix my errors... I have a lager as well at 1.022 so I want to experiment ... Pitch new yeast ... Swirl it.. Warm it... 35 days on the yeast cake now that was so active the first three days I had a mess to clean up... Consider this my experimental batch... How should I get that fg down ?
 
How about more information for us to work from?
Give us the entire recipe for one of your beers, how about the pale ale? Then, we can work on figuring out what is the problem. Mash temp, yeast health and pitch rate, and grain bill can all play big factors in FG.
 
I do a variety of AG beers, from milds to Imperial stouts, obviously different mash temps, use both liquid and dry yeasts, and never rehydrate or use a starter (well, I made a starter once, but that was a special case). I chill to <70F and ærate for 30 seconds with a William's oxygenation setup. I always have a good fermentation within 24 hours, and I usually hit the FG for the recipe within ±.002.
The only thing I know for sure that's made a difference is the injection of oxygen into the wort. Before that, it could take up to 48 hours for fermentation to start, and there would be a bit more variation in the FG.
As "pdxal" points out, try to provide more information of this sort, to attempt to isolate one variable.
 
Have you tried pitching more yeast??? I am about to do that myself with a stubborn Saison.
 
I checked my hydrometer and water is 0.096... Lol ok new hydrometer needed... But all the beers all three beers I still have sitting on the yeast cakes are still cloyingly sweet.. But I suppose I'm safe to bottle and age without fear of bottle bombs now... I feel stupid.
 
MotorcycleMatt said:
Wouldn't a .096 water reading mean your fg was even higher?

It would, but that still doesn't sound right.
If it is really reading .096, then his reading of 1.022 would actually be 1.926, which just isn't possible.
If it was .960 then that should mean that a reading of 1.022 is actually 1.062, or basically unfermented wort.
If it was .996 that would make a reading of 1.022 actually be 1.026, which is the most plausible given everything else.
 
... but I have not been able to get the fg for any below 1.022 ... All started between 50-52 and pitched more healthy rehydrated yeasts. Then yeast starters.. Temp at steady 70 F but all turn out sugary and over fg ... All stopped at 22... What else can I try?

First thing you have to do is identify why this is happening. Without knowing exactly what you are doing, it is difficult to say. But I would say the first thing you have to do is a forced ferment tests. It will give you the maximum attenuation you can achieve with the yeast strain you have.

Some of fellow brewers here suggested aeration might be the problem and it is quite possible. Some yeast strains have higher oxygen requirements than others and it is generally safe to assume that you need around 10ppm of oxygen in your wort. Your pitching rate might also be too low, leading to stuck fermentation. For a wort that is under 60 gravity, you need around 5-6 million cells per milliliter. So for a 20 liter batch, you need 100-120 billion cells. If you don't have a microscope to count them, you can buy liquid yeast from White labs or Wyeast laboratories that sells the right amount of cells for 5 gallons batch (cost between $7-$10). You can buy those pretty easily, just look for the nearest dealer on their website. Don't forget that yeast is a living organism, when they are dried, they are stressed (even if you rehydrate them after).

Some advices: Liquid yeast will generally give you a much superior final product than unknown origin dried yeast. Controlling the temperature during the fermentation at different stages of evolution will even have a bigger impact on your finished beer than brewing all grain vs malt extract. I find 70°F is too high for most ale for the first few days (it will produce more diacetyl). Pitch at 75-77°F and let it drop to 65-67°C and keep it that way for the first week. You can increase to 68°-70° afterwards. Always allow for a diacetyl rest at the end of the fermentation (you can increase the temp to 72-75°F for the diacetyl rest).

Agitation and splashing in the carboy.

Never do that once the fermentation is started (or even less if it is finished!), it will trigger the chemical precursor (acetolactate) that will eventually add too much diacetyl in your beer.

Hope this was helpfull.

:off:Sorry for my bad english since it is not my first language..
 
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