Morebeer Pliny Clone (DME) stuck Fermentation

Let me state upfront: I don’t know why your beers appear to be stuck.

One question: did your beers get too cold while you were away?

Second question: how confident are you of the accuracy of your specific gravity readings (“Both SG readings were only 1/2 way done”)? Is there any chance these readings are off and those beers actually reached their final gravity targets?

Given your description of the PtE batch: “Pliny krausen was fierce to start…” it would be unusual for this fermentation to stall.

You made mention of beano and below is from BYO magazine:

“Beano® isn't just for flatuence — it's also the key to brewing light beer at home! Slip a couple Beano® tablets in the fermenter and the unfermentable carbohydrates will be converted to fermentable sugars and, voilà, light beer.”

If you do indeed have stuck fermentations (which I question) than beano is not the ‘answer’ here. Beano just converts dextrins to simple sugars.

Cheers!

 

Hydrometer or Refractometer? If the latter, you need to use a refractometer calculator, as a raw refractometer reading won't be anywhere near correct (from a gravity standpoint) once a significant amount of alcohol has been produced.

 

Love my hydrometer!

 

You mentioned an attempt to heat the beer up or control the temperature after one or two weeks but was there any temperature control in the first 72 hours? Fermentation is an exothermic process and generates quite a bit of heat even if your basement was in the high 60s, the beer was likely much warmer and fermented extremely quickly. Like the gentlemen above replied, I would try to take a gravity by another means such as a hydrometer or a corrected refractometer reading as mentioned. Getting a correct measurement is crucial, especially if you’re bottling.

 

One reason I don't use liquid yeast is because those yeasts are sleeping and it's to much effort to wake them up. If there is activity on the surface your fermenting I've fermented beers with almost zero airlock bubbling in 12 days. Hydrometer test every other day.

 

If liquid yeast are sleeping, then dry yeast are comatose. I mean, they are as inactive as yeast can get without being dead.