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Am I stuck?

northhouguy

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Feb 14, 2012
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Put together a Northern German Altbier from extract and  6.0 oz of 420 srm steeped grain.

OG was 1.056, fermented like mad for about 18 hours then settled down.  I roused it a few times during the 4 days it was in the primary.  Today I racked to the secondary and the gravity was 1.023.  There's no kruesen in the secondary.

I made a one liter starter with WLP036.  It smelled good when I pitched it, but there wasn't a lot of it.

Am I stuck, impatient or down the tubes?  Final gravity should be 1.012 per Beersmith...
 
I would say just wait.  I typically allow my beer to ferment 7 -10 days in primary along with 7 - 10 days in secondary.  If your beer is only 4 days in there is no worry.  Also, I have recently been leaning towards going longer in the primary and shorter in the secondary.  Yeast do good things even after visible activity stops.  You don't want to pull off your yeast cake too soon.
 
For your current beer: You are probably impatient.  There will be a lag phase with the new pitch of 24-48 hours---pitching new yeast into alcohol is hard on the yeast.  Take another gravity reading in 2-3 days.  You won't get another Krausen, there isn't enough sugars left for that much activity to get going.  You are just hoping for enough activity to finish off the remaining sugar: a few airlock bubbles is all you should expect.  The new reading should show a declining SG trend, but it may be slow. 

When you re-pitch into a partially fermented beer, you need to pitch the starter when it is at high-Krausen.  Was this the case?  Otherwise, the yeast have a very hard time adjusting to the alcoholic environment, and will probably just go dormant.

Also, warm the beer up by 5 degF (3 degC).  That will help the yeast get the job done, and won't affect flavor at this stage.

Now for future beers: Don't rack to a secondary.  There's no need.  It doesn't do anything good, it doesn't protect the beer from autolysis, it doesn't aid in clarifying the beer, or anything else.  There are really only two reason to ever rack to secondary:
[list type=decimal]
[*]To ADD a new ingredient (coffee beans, cocoa nibs, vanilla beans, fruits, different yeast/bacteria culture, a special fining agent, etc)
[*]To bulk age for longer than 6 weeks
[/list]

If you are just making a normal beer (malt, hops, water, yeast) that you ferment for 5-14 days, and then clarify and bottle, its a waste of effort, and will only serve to decrease the quality of the beer.  At best, you do nothing...at worst, you introduce oxygen which stales the beer, and/or an infection which makes it taste funny (or worse), or causes a stuck ferment (in your case). 

Even if you choose to continue to move the beer to a secondary...NEVER do it before the primary fermentation is complete.  That is determined by gravity readings, not a calendar.  After a week, take a reading.  Wait two days and take another reading. If the readings are the same...you can do anything you want with the beer.  If the second reading is lower then wait two more days.  Continue this until the last two readings are the same. 

 
Good things come to those that wait... Patience is a virtue…  Take it easy… Haste makes waste…

Feel free to add any other “patience” sayings. 

The beer is fine.  Through the carboy I can see a nice 3/8” layer of creamy white krausen floating on top.  The air lock is bubbling once in a while.  There is a half inch layer of yeast on the bottom.

Thanks for all the good advice.

Now I have to remove the fridge light bulb so the beer doesn’t get light struck from me opening up to check it ten times a day…
 
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