Should I stir this (possibly stuck) batch or not?
First time brewing, made a lot of mistakes and now I'm concerned that my fermentation is stuck. Am I just being paranoid or impatient?
Six days ago brewed this stout recipe:
- 6.6 lbs Briess "traditional dark" LME
- 0.25 lbs roast barley
- 1 oz cascade hops
- 0.5 oz willamette hops
WYeast labs 1084 irish ale yeast
Make a few mistakes:
- Got impatient and pitched yeast around 78/79°F, wort had stratified temp wise, top was much cooler than bottom (where I was reading), since I had used a concentrated boil.
- Didn't aerate as much as I could have before pitching. Thought this might be okay, since I used tap water in the carboy, sparged the wort into it, then topped it off, but in retrospect, maybe not.
-Stupidly, did not take a hydrometer reading before pitching yeast.
Anyway, for the past three days gravity has been stuck at 1.021, when the recipe says to expect to get to around 1.010 - 1.014. I can live with the difference in ABV, but I don't want to bottle with unfermented material in there and make grenades. So my question is: should I stir this batch and possibly raise the temp (currently 68°F) to get the yeast going or am I just being paranoid, the batch is done, I should bottle and condition it now? Am I over-thinking this? At any rate, I learned a lot of lessons about paying attention to temperature, taking readings, etc, so I don't think it's a loss either way.
If I SHOULD stir the batch, how do I keep aeration to a minimum?
Thanks!
Topic fermentation-temperature stuck-fermentation stout homebrew troubleshooting
Category Mac