Restarting Stuck Fermentation

[Batches_Brew]

I'm brewed a 1.045 pale ale and plan on using the yeast cake incase my IIPA gets stuck. Thanks for the heads up.

[k4df4l]

Originally Posted by Batches_Brew

I'm brewed a 1.045 pale ale and plan on using the yeast cake incase my IIPA gets stuck. Thanks for the heads up.

Why not just pitch your IIPA straight off on to the PA yeast cake and ferment with that? If you start off with the right amount of healthy yeast, in a properly prep'd environment, stalling is not really a big issue.


Let's talk about why you get a stuck fermentation in the first place.

Here's a good page to check out:
http://www.realbeer.com/spencer/FAQ/...mentation.html

1. very unfermentable wort,
2. insufficient nutrition for the yeast,
3. temperature shocks,
4. high alcohol levels AND insufficient oxygen for the yeast,
5. high alcohol levels AND insufficient starter size,
6. very high alcohol levels, or
7. overly-flocculent yeast.

IMHO you could change #5 to underpitching in general.

So what does throwing a stalled brew on to a cake do? It exposes the remaining fermentable content of your beer to a shit ton of voracious yeasties, all primed to ferment. You might want to ask yourself why your initial strain crapped out on you in the first place and see how you can prevent this in the future.

[cateng]

Originally Posted by Evan!

All of it, if possible. Rack the original beer off it, then rack the stuck beer onto the whole thing.

What if you want to save it for future situations? How do you store it? How do you get it out of the carboy? I am assuming you refrigerate it.

[Evan!]

Originally Posted by cateng

What if you want to save it for future situations? How do you store it? How do you get it out of the carboy? I am assuming you refrigerate it.

I keep it in the carboy if I'm planning on using it within a week. If not, I'll wash and harvest the yeast. I don't keep straight-up cakes laying around for long...

[k4df4l]

Originally Posted by cateng

What if you want to save it for future situations? How do you store it? How do you get it out of the carboy? I am assuming you refrigerate it.

I'll just dump the cake into sanitized mason jars and stick them into the coldest part of the fridge if I'm not going to be able to repitch w/in the week.

[Cookiebaggs]

Thanks Evan.

I had this happen to me with an IPA in early fall. It just stopped. I agitated the yeast cake and was able to get a couple of points but not enough. I did end up pitching a dry yeast and it took off again and fermented down to 1.012. After bottling and kegging, the resulting beer is a bit off with flavor. It has gotten better with time but still isn't what I would like.

[BrewMeister Jeff]

Evan can you explain "Washing" the yeast, please.

[BrewMeister Jeff]

nevermind - found Flanny's Sticky of washing yeast

[PseudoChef]

Here is my profession of love for Evan.

So I brewed those Westy 12 "clones" about 6 weeks ago or something like that (both using the same sample of WY3787 - harvested from a Belgian blonde) and the one with specialty grains got down to 1.020 on its own but the one with just base malt and D2 sat at 1.038 for-fucking-ever. Mashed 147 for 90 minutes on both these suckers. Tried warming up. Nothing.

Kegged my Belgian IPA the other night and the stuck dark strong was racked onto the Schelde cake. Bam. 1.019 in two days and still has active krausen action. Might even try racking the 1.021 on it after this is done to see if it goes down any farther.

Sweet.

[Evan!]

Originally Posted by PseudoChef

Here is my profession of love for Evan.

I knew you'd come around

So I brewed those Westy 12 "clones" about 6 weeks ago or something like that (both using the same sample of WY3787 - harvested from a Belgian blonde) and the one with specialty grains got down to 1.020 on its own but the one with just base malt and D2 sat at 1.038 for-fucking-ever. Mashed 147 for 90 minutes on both these suckers. Tried warming up. Nothing.

Kegged my Belgian IPA the other night and the stuck dark strong was racked onto the Schelde cake. Bam. 1.019 in two days and still has active krausen action. Might even try racking the 1.021 on it after this is done to see if it goes down any farther.

Sweet.

Never fails! And yeah, I'd definitely recommend seeing if you can get the 1.021 half to drop a bit more using this method, especially if you plan on bottling any of this...I've found that any residual fermentables will, no matter how stubborn they may be in the fermenter, somehow get fermented if you ever bottle it, and create gushers, etc. 1.021 FG is high for a beer that mashed at 147f!