stuck fermentation! help!

That's "Alot of gravity" my friend, let it seat for 3 days before you call it "stuck".
Good look

 

That's the funniest suggestion that I've ever seen in this forum. Maybe there is a scientific basis for it, so I'm not panning the idea, but how did you ever think of that?

 

It comes up from time to time. The problem with something like beano seems to be lack of control over the result. I've never used it though. Just going by what I've heard.

 

All grain or extract recipe?
Temp during ferment? Do you employ active temp regulation or is this one in a closet or bedroom somewhere.

With a beer this big and potentially under pitching any dip in temperature could send your yeast into dormancy. I would have suggested warming it up 5 degrees. That might still work however who knows what yeast strain is really working now.

 

It brings me no joy to be the first to say it: Drain pour

RIP

 

50F is pretty dang cold (too cold) for most ale strains. So was it still cold when you repitched (twice)? It's warmer now, right? It'll be interesting to hear the new gravity reading.

 

I did some quick google research. Here's an explanation from BYO:

The science behind the action is simple, well-known and used by some commercial brewers to make light beer. The key ingredient in Beano is a debranching enzyme. When added to beer or wort, the debranching enzyme (amyloglucosidase) renders unfermentable sugars into fermentable sugars. Almost all of the carbohydrates found in pale malt, rice and corn can be completely fermented by yeast when amyloglucosidase is added to the mash or fermenation. Some special malts, especially crystal malts, contain “Maillard reaction products” (MRPs). These are colored compounds formed by the reaction of amino acids and carbohydrates. These compounds are not fermentable, are not rendered fermentable by amyloglucosidase and most of the MRPs are not converted to energy when consumed by beer drinkers. The compounds do, however, increase the specific gravity of wort and beer. In other words, your light IPA may not wind up with the same gravity as the same recipe brewed without crystal malt, but the caloric value is most likely the same.

Link: http://byo.com/low-alcohol-brewing/...can-lower-the-carbohydrates-what-do-you-think

 

You might want to coax it up closer to 68f with a heating pad or something like that. See if it will get going that way.

 

There are reported issues with ECY29 dated 09/08. I had a farily low gravity beer finish at 1.018 that should have been more like 1.012-1.014. After scouring the interwebz, I found that there are others having similar issues with the 09/08 run. Supposedly the yeast was over stressed when he was propagating it and is just crapping out early.

Sounds like you are having major problems... cold could definitely have something to do with it, but the possible ECY29 issues definitely aren't helping your cause at all.

Thankfully, I was brewing a pretty small beer and didn't experience the severity others are reporting... but still noticed there's a problem. I bet if we started a thread about the 09/08 dated ECY29, we'd find more people having the same experiences.

 

As long and as much as needed to keep your wort at the temperature you want. The gravity will then stop dropping when the yeast decide they are done.

 

So did you have ECY29 from 09/08?

 

Yes. What he said.

On a technical note I tend to recommend warming up a beer first before rousing the yeast. Otherwise, the yeast are just being roused into the same temp wort and most of them settle back out before the temp really changes.

That said try and keep an eye on the temp. A heating pad for your back or what-have-you is capable of over doing it. Just try and get it up 5 degrees from where it is now and then check it in a week to see if the gravity has changed.

 

Red Star Pasteur Champagne is not a killer strain. That's why it's traditionally been recommended for stuck fermentation.

It sounds like you underpitched yeast into a high gravity beer and then it got cold enough the yeast went dormant. A combination of rough conditions for the yeast. Even if your ECY yeast was a bad batch, two packets of Nottingham plus a packet of champagne yeast with O2 should have gone to work if all other conditions were acceptable, even in a beer at 1.075. That it didn't start fermenting within hours suggests another condition was inhibiting fermentation and I think the temperature is your obvious condition that required correction. Keep in mind that although the air temperatures in your basement may be in the 60s the floor may be much cooler and with the fermentor sitting directly on the floor you were probably getting a very cold wort. If the air temperatures are in the 60s you can probably ditch the heating blanket and just put the fermentor on something else so it sits above the floor. The heating blanket turned off might be enough but I'd probably add some towels or another blanket underneath the fermentor. If you can put it on a table or chair that would also work.

The whole champagne yeast-stuck fermentation thing is thrown around like it's a magic trick to any fermentation problem. It isn't. Champagne yeast will work to break a stuck fermentation when you have a fermentation that either never starts or stalls after a few days, like this situation, because it's an indication that the yeast are incapable of consuming enough glucose to begin breaking down larger sugars. Champagne yeast won't work to break a stuck fermentation when the majority of fermentation is complete and the yeast have given up because the remaining sugars will be mostly maltose and other more complex sugars champagne yeast cannot ferment or cannot ferment well. In those cases the champagne yeast will consume whatever glucose and fructose it can find from the original wort sugars or what the brewing yeast created out of the maltose but have not fermented.