Ferment reassurance/advice please

[Donkalicious]

Brewed my first IPA, extract, OG 1.061, pitched 1.5L starter of 001 at 65F
After ~48 hours no apparent activity so bumped temp up to 66F. After a couple hours it was fermenting like crazy with krausen coming out of the airlock. Things settled down and had a nice active bubbling for the next day or so. But now it looks like things have died off over the past 24h, and I have almost no activity from the airlock. Last night I tried raising the temp again to 67, and again to 68 this evening. I also took a gravity this evening 1.036.
Advice?
A) relax and have a homebrew
B) check a gravity in a couple days
C) try to shake the carboy up
D) some other brilliant suggestion

Thanks!

[Elbone]

Brewed my first IPA, extract, OG 1.061, pitched 1.5L starter of 001 at 65F
After ~48 hours no apparent activity so bumped temp up to 66F. After a couple hours it was fermenting like crazy with krausen coming out of the airlock. Things settled down and had a nice active bubbling for the next day or so. But now it looks like things have died off over the past 24h, and I have almost no activity from the airlock. Last night I tried raising the temp again to 67, and again to 68 this evening. I also took a gravity this evening 1.036.
Advice?
A) relax and have a homebrew
B) check a gravity in a couple days
C) try to shake the carboy up
D) some other brilliant suggestion

Thanks!

The only way to know for sure is to take a sample and check the gravity, but it's likely done.

[NHBrewer]

Sounds like its done to me but give it a couple of days. 1036 is pretty high. How about adding some dry hops? This will give you a couple more days at least. You can raise the temp more as well. Could just be that you have reached the extent of your fermentability.

NHB

[spiderwrangler]

By almost no activity, what do you mean? Is it bubbling at all? First I'd say check the calibration of your hydrometer by placing it in water, should come out around 1.000. If it's accurate, and you made sure to give the hydro a spin (to dislodge any bubbles that might float it up and give a higher reading) when you took your reading, then your 1036 is likely accurate. In which case, yes, you are not where you want to be. It sounds like you are only about 5-6 days in or so?
Try swirling the carboy to rouse the yeast, but as long as there is some activity in the airlock (positive pressure and occasional bubbling), you should be fine to let it go for a while longer.

Also, if your water level is really high in your airlock, it will take more internal pressure for the bubble to break free, which may make it appear less active.

[Donkalicious]

Thanks for the feedback.
The hydrometer is accurate at least in h20, and the beer is really sweet so the 1.036 makes sense. The airlock is filled to the line as directed so no extra pressure. And I brewed on sunday so today (friday) is day 5

What confuses me is this is 001 not something like saison, I wouldn't think it would just crap out on me half way through. I had a good pitch, temp should be fine for 001, my other worry would be maybe I didnt oxygenate enough. I'm still just shaking it, the aquarium pump I ordered from B3 was back ordered, so could I try letting more air in and shake it up again or would that stale the beer since fermentation is already going? In the meantime Ill try swirling it and warm it up a little more.
Thanks again
-Z

[thatguy314]

001 is fairly temp finicky. I've heard many times you get it below 66 and it'll really just crap out early, and it's hard to rouse. 1056 doesn't have those problems in my hands (we don't have many local WL vendors). I've also heard from people using both that 1056 is a little more behaved.

My advise is to make a starter of 001/1056/us-05 (only aerate teh starter not the beer) and pitch the active starter into the beer. keep it at 68ish this time and see if it'll help get you down another 20 points or so.

[Weenie Boy]

+1 to Thatguy314.
1.03anything is too high (sweet) for an IPA.
Re-pitch and wait.


Weenie Boy

[alan_marks]

Perhaps the easiest way to go is to rehydrate the US-05 in 250 ml of hot water and then pitch. That way you dont have to go thru the time lag of a starter.

HTH,
Alan