Stalled Fermentations

[charlieb]

I am brewing BIAB. Have been doing so for about 6 months now. I was originally doing 5 gallon batches and splitting them into 2 Mr. Beer kegs.
I eventually purchased a plastic fermenter/bucket.

I've done roughly 8 batches in this bucket. This current batch marks my 3rd stalled fermentation. At least it seems stalled/stopped.

I keep my pale in the cool brewing cooler bag with ice to control temps.

Never have I had stalled/stopped fermentations while using the LBKs. Now it appears to be 3 out of 8.

It's happened with 3 different yeasts. All of which are dry yeast.

This particular recipe is using T-58. It was a light grain bill which had an OG of 1.046. It had a very heavy fermentation within 8 hours of pitch.
It's been 8 days, and currently it appears to be stuck at 1.020. I did a reading 2 days ago. If it wasn't 'stuck' I assume it would have gone down a bit more.

Maybe it's finished. Maybe there are no more sugars to consume. Maybe. I pitched at 72 degrees, kept at 68. One day it did drop to 62 overnight because of the weather but I'm hoping that didn't hurt much. I've swirled the bucket to try and 'wake' them up. But nada.

So outside of what I may have done wrong with this current batch, I'm wondering if there are general rules of thumbs to ensure a proper fermentation using a bucket?

Aside from possibly picking apart this current batch I did I'm looking for general thoughts/suggestions on brewing in a bucket. Maybe it's a coincidence? Maybe I've just been
unlucky these few times.

[Beer-lord]

Your temps are fine. I went thru a stretch like that as well and except for a few times, I've found that aeration has helped me greatly. I purchased an oxygen kit and got the air at Lowes for $9 and 1 tank lasts me about 6-7 batches.....I hit it for about a minute or 90 seconds.
Sounds like you pitched more than enough yeast for a 1.046 but you can try to GENTLY move the bucket from side to side twice a day for 2-3 more days and see if you can wake the yeast and also remove any ice and try to get it back to 68-70 degrees. Other than that, this just seems to happen from time to time and like you, I had a number in a row that I just ended up kegging and while sweeter than I would have liked, they're all gone.

[charlieb]

Thanks for the reply. I was thinking about aeration as well. I try and stir the sh@t out of it before pitch. I will look into your comment about the oxygen kit.

Currently it is at 68. I will slosh it a bit more. If it doesn't do much more than oh well. A 3.5% ain't the end of the world

Oh yeah, is it true that when you bottle you get another .5% on top of your ABV?

[Beer-lord]

Some say it's less than .5 but I have no way of really telling other than adding the priming sugar and taking another reading and even then, it's hard to measure the difference.

Just be careful when you move the bucket around. Don't slosh, just gently move the bucket front to back, twice and slowly and it will move some of the yeast and possibly wake any that may have skipped their meal. And, it's too late to aerate now which is what you DON'T want to do at this stage.

[charlieb]

Oops. I did a good sloshing. I'll try and not do that again.

Thanks for the tips!

[Inkleg]

What was your mash temperature?

[charlieb]

155

[Gman20]

i had a batch stall once with workhorse dry yeast......it started out normal with krausen and everything,settled down and started to clear up. then after being close to 3 weeks there was more krausen again. eventually after another week or two it was ok to bottle and turned out ok

[mashani]

The aggressive 2 day fermentation is normal for T-58, then it just slowly eats stuff.

T-58 doesn't floc out fast like say an English strain, so it being temperamental isn't for the same reasons - so rousing probably will not work because flocing out is probably not the reason.

You could toss a bit of sugar in there (dissolved in boiling water and then cooled to room temp). It might kick the yeast into gear.

You could bring your temps up into the mid-upper 70s too. It will not hurt at this point.

I've seen T-58 wake up after 2.5 weeks and ferment some more on it's own when it gets grumpy. So if nothing else I'd warm it up and let it sit.