Hello,
I pitched a packet of safale us-05 seven days ago into a wort with an O.G of 1.050. Today the S.G. is 1.020. Fermentor has been sitting in a room with an ambient temp of about 70 d F. I was going to wait a few days and recheck a gravity reading. In the meantime I was curious if it was okay to give the fermentor a shake in order to rouse the yeast back into suspension. Is this a no-no? Is oxygen still okay at this point in the process?
Thanks!
Andy
There shouldn’t be much if any oxygen in there right now. Shake or swirl away! I just swirled my 2-week old pale ale to mix the dry hops in there some more. It doesn’t hurt a thing, and it might even help.
Will do. Thanks.
I’d recommend you gently swirl rather than shake.
Hi Denny - what’s the rationale behind a gentle swirl vs shake? I’m curious. Thanks.
IMO, you can not be certain of the O2 level in the fermenter. Shaking can be detrimental to the beer. Gently swirl if you like. Don’t splash it.
Why risk things.
Gotcha. So it sounds like you only want to introduce oxygen at the very beginning of the fermentation process. In cases of perceived sluggish or stuck fermentation, better to swirl than shake, or maybe just leave it alone?!?!
Unfortunately I gave the bucket a good shake prior to reading all of the replies. Lets see what happens!
I consider a swirl every couple days standard procedure. Doing it a week (or more) into the ferment has never posed a problem.
If doing a high gravity brew (particularly with more flocculent yeasts like S-04/W1968), I pretty much treat it as a necessity.
In any case, it certainly won’t hurt anything.
[quote=“Nighthawk”]IMO, you can not be certain of the O2 level in the fermenter. Shaking can be detrimental to the beer. Gently swirl if you like. Don’t splash it.
Why risk things.[/quote]
THIS^^^^
hm… how does swirling improve the beer? Besides degassing it. Isn’t there always yeast in suspension anyway even though its not visible with the naked eye? Just curious, haven’t heard about this yet.
If you use a highly flocculant yeast, it can help it get back into suspension. Frankly, I find it to be of limited value.
In my experience, fermentation is self-stirring and you really have to try to prematurely stop the yeast from doing their thing. My guess is that the beer is done. Did you use extract with limited attenuation by chance?
It was a CDA BIAB kit. Not sure what you mean by limited attenuation?
I’m planning to let it sit three weeks in primary before I keg it. Will take a S.G. at that time and see if it has dropped further.
