Yeasty Hydometer sample

[Fremont Brewer]

Thanks everyone for your responses. I went ahead and raised my ferment temp up to 70F and roused the yeast. I read around and think I might have stumbled on why my yeast stalled ( If it did). My recipe used about 3 lbs of sugars along with 19 lbs of grain for a 6 gallon batch. That might have been too much sugar and the yeast may have ate the simple sugars and went to sleep. I think I should have slowly added them towards the end of fermentation instead of right in the boil.

Thanks for the responses on the hydrometer readings. That makes sense about the pool analogy.

I will let it go another week...... It is at 7.6% now, it should be 9%. I'm still debating more yeast or just keeping as is.

Cheers,

[spiderwrangler]

If it is the case that the yeast glutted on the simple sugars and crashed, an additional pitch would give you yeast that would be able to work on what's there, provided you get them to where they can handle getting dumped into 7+% beer.

[BDawg]

I'd simply rehydrate and pitch a pack of US-05. That yeast can handle >10% easily.

[BeaverBarber]

IF you have only let the beer ferment for one week, then you should continue to let it ferment for at least another week. check your gravity at the end of two weeks just to see where you are before making any decisions. If your yeast is still in suspension, there is a good chance it is still slowly fermenting away at the remaining sugars to reach your FG.

this of course depends on proper aeration levels, a low mash temp, use of any simple sugars, and fermentation temperatures (if possible, rouse your yeast and let your temps come up a bit to help the yeast finish out).

Yep. I second that. You might be done depending on your mash temp and fermentation temp because you're in the neighborhood of 70% attenuation. Let it warm up for a week, and it could come down a few points, but I wouldn't expect too much. Also someone else pointed out that you could throw in some dry yeast and that might bring it down a little too. Those 1.085 beers are tricky, and a FG of 1.030 is not completely unheard of. They require more yeast and oxygen than normal. Some pro brewers even aerate those beers twice; once at the beginning of fermentation and once after about 12 hours. If you throw in enough yeast where you don't require any more growth because your wort is already completely saturated, that's another option too. Letting those beers age is very important. I advise you to brew another beer right away so you can let go of that one. It's sort of like breaking up, but in this case you get her back in about 6 months.

[brewinhard]

I'd simply rehydrate and pitch a pack of US-05. That yeast can handle >10% easily.

I think his best bet might be to make a small (pint sized) starter with the dry yeast and pitch it when it is at highest krausen or at least a bit active (with a small starter size this should only take a few hours to get to this point). Pitching a dry rehydrated yeast into a stuck ferment with a considerable amount of alcohol and no oxygen remaining in solution will not fair very well. An actively fermenting yeast on the other hand will have a better chance at gaining a foothold in the wort and hopefully help to finish things out a bit.