Stuck fermentation

[Kyral210]

is this normal?

After 9 days my brew has gone from a gravity of 1.055 to 1.024. It is still some way off the 1.010 im looking for, is there a problem? I did transfer to a secondary fermenter after 3 or so days, was that a mistake? I am keeping it in my cupboard which is about 20°C at the moment and it is an English Winter Ale.

Chris

 

[tubby_shaw]

That is a slow fermentation :shock:
I am going to assume that this is a kit that you are fermenting?
To rescue it, try gently rousing the yeast from the bottom of the fermenting vessel (without splashing) and raising the temperature by 2 degrees. If this doesn't help add another sachet of good ale yeast such as Nottingham or SOO5 along with a teaspoon of yeast nutrient.
For future reference aeration of the beer prior to adding the yeast is essential to give the yeast the best possible chance of doing it's job and if you want to rack to secondary before fermentation is complete wait until the beer has dropped to below 1/4 of it's original gravity (i.e OG 1.050 rack at 1.013) or you may not leave enough yeast in suspension to finish the job.
Good luck with it and let us know how you get on :thumb:

 

[Kyral210]

Ok, I am going to rouse the yeast from the bottom, but after I have taken a sample from the bottom of the fermenter. I will put this in a demijohn, add some neutirent and extra sugar and get it bubbling again. I guess make a 're-starter' from the yeast.

Dam it!

 

[Kyral210]

Hold that, I just found a sachet of ale yeast, so added that to the brew just now. That should hopefully kit it into completion! Lets wait a few hours and see if it does...

UPDATE

Predictably, those 300 billion extra yeast cells have already started to work! within 10 minutes the airlock is bubbling nicely! On the plus side of all this, with every brew I do there is something I learn. The lesson of today, make sure some of the top floating yeast particles are transferred to the secondary fomenter to ensure a full ferment!

 

[Kyral210]

What am I doing wrong? The temperature is at 20°C and the gravity is still 1.020, so hardly gone down even with the addition of another pack of brewers yeast.

Any suggestions? Should I try and raise the temperature of keep it as it is?

 

[Wez]

Yes i'd try to raise the temp to 23-24 to get the yeast going, when it's at that temp give it another rouse and maybe even add more yeast if you have it. When it's going well again you can drop the temp back to 20c.

 

[Kyral210]

Ok, this is a real school boy question, but if there are still bubbles and some foam on the surface of the brew, more so now than last time I looked, does that mean fermentation is still going on, even if it is slowly?

 

[Wez]

Yeah, sounds like it's fermenting slowly.