Dreaded stuck fermentation

You can easily swirl without oxidizing. Just rotate on it's vertical axis, that should move the carboy but the beer will remain fairly still and rouse the yeast (which is sitting on the carboy). Plus, assuming you have airlock and the primary has been otherwise sealed, there should be almost no O2 left. If that doesn't work, I would make a starter (with DME) and pitch it at high krausen. You really want the yeast to be active when you throw them into a tough environment.

 

Why would you use 1.5 packs of US-05 instead of 2?

What ericj551 said. Good luck.

 

Yup. It happens rarely. Who knows why? I always blame the yeast.

 

Round up...especially with dry yeast

 

Provided you fermented at an appropriate temperature for an appropriate amount of time, rehydrated the dry yeast, oxygenated your wort, and added yeast nutrient, I see no reason why 1.5 packets wouldn't get the job done.....other than your ridiculously cold initial fermentation temperature, but moving the wort to a 67F room should have kicked it off again. Did you successfully accomplish the 5 prerequisites I mentioned?

 

I always rehydrate, regardless if others say you don't have too, it yealds way more cells.

 

What FG are you shooting for?

 

I've read that you can lose up to 50% viability by failing to rehydrate the dry yeast first. If so, you just attempted to ferment 5 gallons of 1.071 OG beer with 3/4 of a pack worth of cells. Also, how fresh was the dry yeast? How old was the pack / what was the expiration date?

 

go ahead and put it in secondary or package it. If its done fermenting, its done. The safale 05 will not do too much work from my experience.

 

I think this one is done fermenting mainly because of an initial underpitch. The drop in temps definitely didn't help of course. That's also assuming the original mash temp / duration was satisfactory. I'd guess that if you racked to secondary, pitched a full packet of rehydrated us05 into the 1.030 wort, and maintained a fermentation temperature in the upper 60's for 10-14 days, the gravity would drop by as much as 15+ points.

 

I would look for a yeast that has a high alchol tolarance and re-pitch.

 

Drop safale s-33 in there. It should finish it off. It has a high alcohol tolerance and is fairly clean fermenting.