Fermentation stopped after 2 days

Ivan B.

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Hi,

first of all, I'm sorry, if this topic appeared on this forum already, but I haven't found anyhing.

So my irish stout all grain brewing went very well and I'm sure I did everything correctly. After I pitched the US-04 the fermentation started as usual and in 2 days it went from 1043 (as planned) to 1031, but now it's nearly a week and the gravity is still 1031. The temperature is always around 21 degrees. Do you have any idea, what the problem is? Thank you very much for every helpful reply.
 
Did you taste the latest sample you pulled? I ask because I don’t know your experience level. If it still tastes sweet, I would concur that fermentation isn’t complete. But on the off chance it tastes great (just lacking carbonation and flavor aging), your gravity measuring equipment may be off or being misread. If in fact it is still sweet, you could give the fermenter a good shake up. Sometimes, that’ll get the yeast to wake up and finish their work.

There are a bunch of great experienced brewers here that will offer their help as the day progresses.
 
Fairly typical of S-04...usually it'll go further before it stops though. It most often makes it to the high teens before it stalls.
What happens is that it goes insane for a couple of days at warm temperatures and blows itself out and because it's so floculent, the first lag in activity causes it to drop like a rock. Your 21C air temp allowed the wort to get a few degrees warmer and contributed to the blast of activity.
Swirl the crap out of it to get the yeast back in suspension. You may have to rouse it a couple of times to get it to drop gravity.
 
Fairly typical of S-04...usually it'll go further before it stops though. It most often makes it to the high teens before it stalls.
What happens is that it goes insane for a couple of days at warm temperatures and blows itself out and because it's so floculent, the first lag in activity causes it to drop like a rock. Your 21C air temp allowed the wort to get a few degrees warmer and contributed to the blast of activity.
Swirl the crap out of it to get the yeast back in suspension. You may have to rouse it a couple of times to get it to drop gravity.

Thank you and thanks to Mase as well! I'll try to get them back to work and find a cooler place for the beer.
 
Might as well keep it warm at this point. All the ester production is already in play. Ideally, you'd start at maybe 18C max so your wort won't take off and go nuts and after a couple of days, drifting up to 20C or even a little higher air temp is fine. That early stage where the action is fierce and the exothermic heat builds up is when temp is more critical.
 

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