Well I have my first stuck fermentation. It was my BiaB ESB. Started @ 1.064 and has been at 1.025 for a week, even after stirring the yeast cake and raising temps.

What can I do? It tasted ok but I would really rather get it down a few points. Can I pitch some US-05 or something to help finish it off? Throw on some Mr. Beer yeast? Or should I bottle as is but not add much (or any) priming sugar and let it finish in the pig?

Do you have any yeast energizer?

Frustrating, isn't it? I've had this happen a few times with my bigger beers with no good resolution. I've tried adding some Mr. Beer yeast a week later with no effect and I tried raising the temperature several degrees without much effect.

Good luck with it anyway.

Can you rack it to another fermentor? If you rehydrate and proof some US-05, that might take it down a few more points, but it's tough to say.

If you can't get it to drop, I'd think about bottling it without a lot of priming sugar, just in case that gets it to drop.

Seems I heard something once about adding champagne yeast to a stuck fermentation.

Oh yeah, I remember hearing that one. And what Jon wrote. I have always wondered if that would work.

Maybe the yeast have done all they can do and that's as far
as it's gonna go?
It that the one you mashed really high?

What about Amylase Enzyme?

HJ, this one was mashed on target. I was only .002 off of OG according to Qbrew estimates.

I have yeast nutrient, no energizer.

I do have an open fermenter and some US-05. I would hate to waste it just to have the US-05 do nothing though.

I was planning on bottling this in the pig with very little priming sugar - 1 volume of CO2 (5.4 g of sugar for 2.13 gallons). I think this, along with hopefully waking the yeast a bit, will let it use some of the left over sugar for carbonation. The issue is if it doesn't carbonate at all, I can't just open the pig and add sugar.

I bought some of this recently and have been wondering about using it.

Yeast nutrient and yeast energizer are a little different, but you could come close. Do you have some bad yeast, nutritional/brewers yeast or a packet of fromunda you don't plan to use? Add a teaspoon of yeast nutrient and some yeast of any kind to 1/2 cup of water. Bring to a boil. Let it cool and carefully add to the fermenter.

I have some old mr. beer yeast and nutrient. you say to add mr. b yeast and nutrient, boil and add that to the fermenter? add boiled yeast, not fresh yeast?

from what i've read on other boards, you'll need to pitch an ass ton more yeast to restart a stuck fermentation... like a starter for 5 gallons into a mr. beer-sized batch. i would try the amalyse enzyme, nutrient, and dead cells.

I dont think I want to do the amylase. I would need to either heat the beer to 164 or chill it to above freezing to denature the enzyme and both of those would kill the yeast and I couldn't naturally carbonate.

I guess I could do the enzyme and chill the beer and rack it cold, adding Mr. B yeast to it for carbonation. hmmm....

if it matters, I think the fermentation is stuck due to lack of oxygen at pitching.

Don't use the amylaze if you didn't mash too high. Try racking to another fermentor and warming it up a touch. If that doesn't work, I'm not sure what will help...except bottling. That ALWAYS seems to restart stuck fermentations!

note to self.... amalyse not equal to servomyces... noted. yes, don't use amalyse. servo would help... but not amalyse.

I'm just gonna suck it up and bottle as is. i'll do a very small amount of carbing sugar and hope it restarts a bit to add to the carbonation.

I'll just do a better job of watching mash temps (if that was the issue, I don't think it was) and aerating the wort.

thanks guys!!

Right. Boiled. You're adding it to provide nutrients for the yeast that is in the fermenter now, but quiescent. I think that yeast energizer is similar to yeast nutrient, with the addition of yeast hulls and a few other things. It's supposed to be helpful in restarting a stuck fermentation.

If you think you didn't aerate sufficiently, maybe it would be worth doing a toothpick in some olive oil and stirring the water with it before bringing it to a boil.

This combination isn't exactly the same as yeast energizer, but I think it would be better than pain nutrient for this situation.

It sounds like you might want to change something in your normal pitching routine... maybe more oxygenation like you mentioned. Pitching more yeast into something the current yeast are having trouble with is probably beating a dead horse. Champagne yeast would probably work, but it'd end up chewing through sugars you don't want chewed in a beer. Maybe pitching an active starter of US-05 would help. Active yeast pitched in there seems like it'd have a better chance.

I have the opposite problem that I've never addressed but only adjusted to. Each wort gets Wyeast nutrient and 10 min with the air pump/filter/stone. My lag time is higher than normal, but so it my attenuation. It sounds like a good problem at first until you try to make a stout/mild/etc. Then it is a real pain.

I know I don't have to say be careful bottling that stuff... but, be careful bottling that stuff!! It might just take off once in the bottle.

true....i'm pretty sure the pig can stand that though. I wonder if i'm not better off dumping it. Between the high OG, problems that will present at bottling, the high fermentation temps and everything, I may be better off just moving to the next batch.

What if he moved it to a secondary and pitched 1/2 pack of US 05
and made a starter out of the other half for a future batch?

i thought you weren't supposed to make starters with dry yeast?

you don't NEED to make a starter with the dry yeast if you are going directly into your fresh batch of wort.

HJ is basically saying if you use half now to kickstart the ferm, build a starter with the other half so the yeasties can multiply and get the cell count up to where it would have been had he not needed to use the other half pack here to restart the ferm.

wow that is some run on sentence there!

If you've got an empty fermentor, just rack it to secondary and see if that helps.

If not, rehydrate and proof half a pack of US-05 with some DME/LME. Once it gets active, add an equal volume of the stuck beer to it (so it can adjust to the fermentation conditions). Give it a few hours (or more), then pitch it into the stuck beer.

I moved this over to another fermenter last week. I racked it onto some water boiled with mr b yeast and nutrient. Let it sit for 4 days at 70* and saw no change in gravity. it has a significant off taste now, astringent and bitter. i'm dumping and i'll redo this recipe at some point.

That's too bad. Good luck on the next brew.

yeah, i know that everyone says not to ever dump a brew until it's been bottled and conditioned but I can't get the grav to drop and i dont want to waste the time and bottles on it, hoping it might turn out ok. I would rather do it again and fix my mistakes.

The thing is, until it's been bottled and conditioned, you don't know they're mistakes.

Some beers just stop higher than you may have wanted them, and some beers taste off at bottling, but get better once they've been properly conditioned.

I say bottle it.

Jon, i'm going to throw it in the pig, just to see what happens. 0.5 oz priming sugar and I'll let it ride. The wife doesn't want any of her brown ale in a pig so it would just sit empty until next month or so, might as well see what happens.

Good call! Though a half ounce of priming sugar sounds a wee bit low to me...or are you worried that it'll be overcarbed if you use more?

0.5 oz is the high end of what the calculator recommended. That, coupled with the high OG and the fact that the pig uses about 1/3 less priming sugar as bottling leads me to think it will be ok. I'd rather have flatish beer than blow out the pig.