Stuck at 1.030

[FATC1TY]

I'd suggest getting a hydrometer testing tube as well. Leaving your hydrometer in the primary isn't going to give you an accurate reading. Not to mention it's hard to read, and all the crap in there will cling to it.

 

[kwingert]

Some thoughts for your next brew -

I think you would be a lot better off just ignoring your beer for 2-3 weeks. Our job is to crush grains, mash grains, boil, cool, make sure we have made a good starter, or used adequate amounts of yeast, and provide a good temperature range for fermentation.

If we do all of that, the yeast will do their job perfectly, 99% of the time. In fact, yeast almost never screw up their part of the deal(unlike us - myself included And, on the extraordinarily rare occassion where the yeast don't do what they are supposed to - there is not a whole heck of a lot you are going to do to fix it, other than dump in a pack of dry yeast.

6 days is WAAYYYY too early to be declaring something is wrong with your fermentation (unless it just never started). If you pitch your yeast and there is a good steady fermentation, just leave it alone. Don't take gravity readings, don't taste it, just let the yeast do their job. Floating a hydrometer in your fermenter for the full time is not a good way to take gravity anyway. All sorts of debris will get clumped onto your hydrometer and you will not get accurate readings. And then, if you are getting faulty readings and doing things to your beer because of it..... you could cause actual problems where there were none. Also, if you are constantly messing with your beer and putting things in and out of it, you are just asking for problems at some point.

My strategy -
*Brew beer
*Chill beer to low 60's (ales)
*Dump in a good, healthy, 1 liter yeast starter
*Put the lid on my bucket
*Keep beer somewhere that is in the low to mid 60's
*Do nothing at all for 3 weeks
*After 3 weeks, plan to bottle/keg
*Draw off a sample just to make sure it is ready, taste, gravity reading (it always is ready).
*Keg/bottle

This is definitely the hardest part of brewing when you get started - patience and leaving your beer alone. The best cure (IMO) is to get a few more fermenters so that you can get a good rotation of brewing, fermenting, bottling/kegging, tasting going - that allows you to ignore the beer that needs to be ignored.

Enjoy - it is a great hobby

Words to brew by.