Fermentation stuck at 1020

[OzBeer]

Hi guys, 

I don't know what I had in my mind but I transfered my batch (after a week) to secondary without checking gravity. It was just full of foam and had an extremely vigorous fermentation so far so it just seemed ok. Stupid I know! 

So it's been 3 days at the secondary now and the gravity still at 1020 - when it should be at 1011, 1010..

My question is: Should I pitch a bit more yeast to get that gravity down? I really need this beer to be dry.

Thanks a lot for the help.

Some additional info: 

Yeast strain: 1272 - Harvested (3 beer)

OG: 1071

Days on primary: 7

[Pierre Malan]

I'm assuming you have kept the beer warm. Suggest the following:

- check that fermentation has actually stopped and you aren't still going

- if it is stalled, then pitch some more yeast.  If your mash temp wasn't right or the recipe was a bit heavy on specialty, then you may just have high unfermentables... otherwise success!

above all, RDWHAHB.

Good luck

[OzBeer]

Thanks Pierre,

The reason I believe it didn't ferment very well was temp. - too low with this winter I believe. Even put a heater at my garage to see if the remaining yeast in the secondary kicks off but so far no luck.

About fermentables, the mashing was around 65-66 so it shouldn't be a problem here. 

Will give another couple of days.

Cheers!

[Pierre Malan]

Thinking about this, there should still be yeast in suspension.  We bottle carbonate after cold crashing, gelatine fining and then racking off the yeast cake.  The beer is usually beautifully clear.

In light of that, suggest that you warm up the beer and see how it goes - if you could get it up to 20 or so, then the yeast may wake up and start eating (if it can be eaten of course) ;)

[OzBeer]

Thanks Pierre, 

Yeah already put a heater down in the dungeon. Let's hope it will kick off again.

\

Cheeers.

[Crusader-Rob]

what you'v done is taken it off the yeast before the fermentation has completed I think. (Although after a week I'd expect it to be closer to you FG)

I would say let it ride for the 2 week secondary - and monitor it over the course.

if it doesn't budge (it should even if you've taken it offthe cake early) I'd suspect the yeast has pooped out, either due to unfermentable sugars, for me once the beer is doen femrneting, adding more yeast doesn't generally help - and if it does you need an active starter of fresh yeast.

In future I would suggest brewing and leaving in primary for 2-3 weeks, before bottling/kegging/or racking to secondary 

IMO secondary is not required these days, and you may just end up short changing yourself with FG or off flavours in the final product (yeast cleans up after itself), which is why the second week on a yeast cake can help in alot of cases.

[OzBeer]

Thanks Rob, 

After a whole week I was expecting to be at least close to 1012-1013, but as I said in my reply to Pierre, I guess it was the fermentation temperature.

I've heard a while ago that harvested yeast kind of "learn" a routine towards hibernation - and automatically I associated that with the fact that the lower fermentation temperature might have triggered that... don't know.

Did it all wrong this time, besides the fact that I didn't check the gravity I've also discarded the yeast from this batch...  

Will give more a couple of days and decide what to do next.

Cheers

[Peter Smith]

In the past the only way I have found to move this is to park the brew, brew another beer and once that one has finished, rack onto its yeast cake...    When you rack onto yeast if you add 300g of sugar boiled in some water as well and warm everything up to like 20C.   what was the grain bill ?  1071 OG is a pretty big beer with 4rd gen yeast if its been under high alcohol before and also if you are not using a lot of yeast nutrients/oxygen at pitch.   White talks about the yeasts environmental requirements as it drops out at the end of a ferment and how this can be hit pretty hard over multiple generations.   

I have a 1.068og stout stuck at 1.030, about to rack onto a 20L us05 cake..(rather I will swirl and pitch the cake). after that If it fails I will keg a sweat stout....  its tastes great.... just too sweat

As an aside I used to harvest and wash yeast from below beers.

I have moved, to growing yeast up front.   I now build a 2L starter from smackpack etc, pitch into 10L of wort (1kg dme is like $11)   then harvest this into 6 x 250ml jars, and then use these to make  2L starters, after 4 brews  I end up with only 2 x 250's left so I do this again one of these into 10L, to produce 6 more flasks,  that way I am never harvesting from an actual beer.    I don't autoclave the jars but I am damn careful about cleaning and handling, often boiling the jars lids etc... then star san etc,    now I only ever really repitch lager yeasts not ales

http://www.labwarehouse.co.nz/Glass-bottle-screw-cap--neutral--0500...

[OzBeer]

Thanks Peter,

That's a really good idea, although I'm not sure if I'll be able to do it this week.

This beer had 7+ kg of malt + 0.5 kg of sugar to reach 1071 and I've used 1 tsp of yeast nutrient + 2-3 min agitating the fermenter. As for the yeast, made a 1.5 l starter 30 h prior to pitching, and this is the 4th time I'm using and all previous batches had outstanding performance fermentation wise.

Even though I transferred to a secondary I'd assume that the remaining yeast would still be able to ferment the remaining sugars - from my mashing profile I wound't expect too much complex sugars...

For me 1020 is no-go for this beer. I've put too much hops in it.

As per harvesting yeast, too be honest, when harvesting the yeast, for me, more than just saving some money, is for the fun of adding a different character to the following beer.

Cheers,

[Peter Smith]

2L starter of this stuff may more it...

http://www.danstaryeast.com/company/products/cbc-1-cask-bottle-cond...

maybe not even a starter....  in theory..... its designed for this type of problem, being added in late in the piece and expected to do the heavy lifting.   Karl at all grain had some last year, not sure about BC.

[OzBeer]

Cheers man,

Will look into it. 

[OzBeer]

Hi guys just a heads up on this.

I got in touch with Brewers Coop about a re-fermentation yeast and they actually suggested a different approach: Put a 1/4 tsp of yeast nutrient dissolved in little boiling water besides increasing the fermentation temperature (which I already had done).

Spot on! One day later the hydrometer was reading 1011!! 

Thanks a lot guys,

[Peter Smith]

What was  yeast Nutrient you used?