A little background here. I brewed a 10 gal IPA last Sunday. Post boil gravity was 1.074 measured with refractometer and confirmed with tilt hydrometer. So, three weeks prior I had made a large 4l starter with a whitelabs 041 Pacific Ale flex pack, I let it stir for 48 hours. So, I was planning on brewing three weekends ago, but wasn't able to. I decided to save the starter in hopes of using it ASAP. I decanted for one day and split the yeast cake into 2 sanitary 1pint canning jars sealed and refrigerated at 36* this was on Oct 15th. Fast forward to brew day Oct 28th. So I had just under 32 lbs in my grain bill with 11.5 gal strike water. I mash in and came to a temp rest around 149* I was going to do a beta rest at 148* for 20 mins then jump up to 152 for the remainder of the mash time. BTW I am on a burtus 10 type keggle gas fired herms. Well after mash in and 20 mins at 149ish I started my herms cycle to get my temp up and I struggled to get it to budge. I stirred and direct fired and circulated through the HLT where I have the HERMS coil. Eventually I got to 151-152 and by that time I was an 10 mins over an hour since mash in. SO I just continued to heat the mash while circulating through the HERMS coil and periodically stirring the mash, until I reach 168* at which time I turned off any heat and begun to cycle through my fly sparge to get nice clear wort for the mashout. I started to transfer the wort to the boil kettle and got to 10.5 gals and then had a stuck sparge. I had to slowly drain the last 1.5 gals I needed to get to my 12 gal boil volume. This whole time the two pint jars with the yeast cake was sitting on my counter at room temp approx 65*. SO I boiled, cooled, and attempted to whirlpool but didn't get the action I normaly do on a 5 gal batch and I was running out of daylight. It is now 6:30pm and light is gone and I still have to clean up. I transferred by pump into my sanitized SS unitank rolled the tank into the garage and hooked it up to the glycol and finished cooling and I pitched at 62*. Cleaned up, drank two beers and passed out. Next morning I woke up realizing that I hadn't oxygenated! No worries though, it's only been a few hours. So I sanitized my pure o2 set up and dropped it into the fermenter and added a 80 sec count of o2. BTW there was visible action already so the yeast had started. I bumped the temp up to 67 just to give the yeast a little kick. The tilt was sending me a reading of .067 so I was like cool, kicking butt!! This is Monday morning. Tuesday, tons of bubbles in the blowoff! tilt readings in the high .050's Wednesday already sign's of slowed activity. Tilt in the low to mid' .050's. Thursday, 4 days into the ferment, activity is slowed extensively and tilt is showing .048 Thursday night, Tilt shows .046. I'm like MY YEAST!!! Friday, this morning, Tilt was at .045. I may have not been able to save my starter and I have under pitched. So my question is......I have a dry 05 pack for emergencies, another pack of 041 I was saving, and another option of stealing some yeasties off the bottom of the UnitTank and doing a small 1l starter from it? Does any one have any insight on what I should or shouldn't do? I know my other option is to just let it sit and wait a week to see, but I'm pretty sure I am beginning to get a fermentation stalled out. Thoughts and Prayers?
Slow Fermentation. Thinking of repitching
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Gnomebrewer
Well-Known Member
Could your TILT be stuck/sitting on something? Maybe take a conventional hydrometer reading? Adding a packet of US05 won't hurt if it is starting to stall.
I did give the fermenter a little jiggle and some soft taps with a mallet last night to see if maybe the tilt was hung up on the glycol coil and in hopes to rouse the yeast a bit. The tilt sent a reading that bumped up to .048 then fell back to .046. It could very well be caught in there. The one bad thing about a Stainless fermenter is you can't see in. I'm thinking of rehydrating the US05 and pitching it. At least it shouldn't impart any specific yeast flavors. I love brewing but sometimes it can be a PITA and stressful.
