stuck fermentation! help!

What do you mean by "still no more actvity"? Have you measured the gravity since you took the 1.075 reading?

(BTW, champagne yeast isn't really useful for fixing stuck fermentations. It's not good at eating maltose and doesn't eat maltotriose at all.)

 

I would wait 3 days after the reading to take another.

 

if it doesn't change...
no need to get desperate.

you are attempting to ferment a brew with an OG of 1.120. that is not ordinary; expect difficulties with yeast, difficulties reaching FG, longer time to reach FG. don't panic.

looking at krausen is fairly useless. you need to get some hydrometer readings, spaced a few days apart. if you have consecutive stable readings and you are clearly not fully attenuated, then we can suggest some yeast management.

whatever the case, the old DWRHAHB adage is particularly true here. fermenting a barley wine is not typical. you are asking a lot from your yeast and you will need to meet every one of their needs along the way.

Cheers.

 

Then you would need to re-pitch, assuming yeast was the problem (i.e. you oxygenated well and the temperature is warm enough for your yeast). Hopefully the champagne yeast you pitched was not a killer strain. Killer strains produce proteins which kill susceptible strains (brewers strains).

 

I am 99% sure Champagne yeast is a killer strain. And it will do nothing for stuck beer fermentations.

Anyway beerdunson, get new liquid yeast and build the starter correctly. In fact, overbuild it. Cold crash it, decant and add 1000-2000ml of the barleywine to the slurry in the flask. Put it on a stirplate for a few hours and pitch, that will get the yeast used to the new wort of the barleywine.

Also, for something this big you should have planned on another shot of O2 at 12 hours after pitching.

My amature opinion is this will be difficult to save, good luck.

 

I agree...if the champagne yeast he used was a killer strain, there's no way to remove them or their proteins.

 

if the Champagne strain he used is indeed poisonous to the primary, it might be best to finish fermentation with Champagne yeast. not ideal, but a lot easier than building a starter from the half finished wort. faster and cheaper.

oxygenate, hydrate a few 11g packs, pitch. perhaps some warmer temperature to persuade the bugs to get to work. Champagne yeast is a French variety after all. they can and will go on strike.

but first, some gravity readings.
Cheers.

 

Champagne yeast won't eat any maltotriose and is bad at eating maltose. There's no way for it to finish the fermentation. Not to the extent that the original yeast (or any beer yeast strain) would have.

I think that's Davis #595. I don't know if it's a killer. Anyone?

 

Google doesn't turn up much info about it either way

 

in this instance, we do not know if the primary strain is stalled and we do not know what sugars are left for fermentation. so use of Champagne yeast is appropriate if not ideal, given what we know.

it may very well be that a less than stellar barley wine with residual maltotriose beats a stalled barley wine that is difficult or not possible to get going again. my vote is for keeping it simple at this point, especially since we assume the primary yeast, along with hostile fermentation environment, has the additional burden of aggressive champagne yeast to contend with.

Cheers.

 

I've never tried it, but I hear adding Bean-o will break down the sugars to more simple and easily fermentable versions. Something to research for sure.

 

We know that the gravity went from 1.120 to 1.075 (as of last measurement). That's about 38% apparent attenuation. A typical beer wort won't even contain anywhere near enough sucrose/fructose/glucose to make up what's left in this beer, and that's assuming the original yeast ate the more difficult sugars first and left the simple ones alone, which beer yeast very much tends not to do. So I disagree that champagne yeast can fix this beer. Last ditch maybe, but it will not attenuate this beer down to where it belongs.

At this point, the original yeast is either dead (from a killer strain), or it's still alive. If it's still alive, it won't have to compete with champagne yeast for the more difficult sugars that are left. But how about if OP takes another gravity reading before dumping a fourth pitch of yeast in?

Edit: I just re-read that you advised taking another gravity reading first. I agree.