First of all let me say hi and a big thank you in advance, I've recently started fermenting a new batch of beer. As I don't have a lot of equipment, I decided to use LME (Bavarian Wheat Pouch 4.7º Mangrove Jack’s), 500g of toasted malt (1200 IBU, 30min mash in water), 1kg of natural honey and the yeast that came with the LME. I've done everything by the book, as I've done multiple times (this is my twelve batch). However, the yeast only fermented for a few hours, then.. they got stuck. Maybe? I've done three things, aerating the wort, pitching bottled beer (1 week old from a previous batch that fermented perfectly with the same yeast used in this batch) and, seeing that nothing worked, I pitched the yeast that was available to me, a wine yeast, ES488 (the closest supply store to me is 200km..), with nutrients. Seeing that I was working with a wine yeast, I've pitched her as I was "pitching" wine (I'm a winemaker, so it's something I've done more times that I can count and, following protocol, every wine that I've inoculated has fermented pretty well), but, again, no signs of fermentation the following day. I've pitched the beer again, same method and same yeast, but without the nutrients. Again, for my desperation, no signs of fermentation. I just wanted to know if anyone knows what could've gone wrong. I've picked my brain but came up with no good reason. Maybe the yeast was not viable? The LME/honey/toasted grains had problems? This is the second time it has happened to me, but last time I've managed to fermented that problematic beer pitching, again, bottled beer (and in that case it was fermented with different strains). It took some time, but the fermentation finished dry and the beer was good, fortunately. Anyway, thanks for any input.
Welcome to the BA site, Barbas, and to the Homebrewing forum. You've given us some information that fermentation did occur, so there is a chance that the beer may be done, although as quickly as what you describe would be unusual. Like what @minderbender said, a hydrometer reading (or refractometer) will be the best way to determine what has happened with your beer.
Some mangrove yeasts can take 35 hrs to get going. You probably killed it when you added the wine yeast. Google "proofing dry yeast". Just used a pack of M-41 that was expired 5 months and proofed it to make sure it was good.
How do you know the yeast fermented for only a few hours then got stuck? Did you take gravity readings before you pitched and after you thought it got stuck? Adding wine yeast seems counter intuitive because you are just going to come out with some weird beer now. In the future, aerating the wort by simply taking the cover off and swirling it is the first thing you can do (soundsl ike you did do that). From there, if your temp is low, try to warm it up a bit.
