stuck fermetation with a twist

[brianboru]

A friend dropped round with a 3kg ipa kit already in a pressure barrel. he is pretty new to brewing so needed help ( so do I) . It turns out the beer is only at 1.020 and tastes very sweet. it has been in primary for 3 weeks then primed and racked into the pressure barrel ( in barrel 3 weeks also very little fizz ). It still tastes like raw wort to be honest..no sign of infection but it aint beer. Im thinking of bring it in to a warm room, take a pint out heat it and add in rehydrated yeast and just re-pitch agian in the barrel with top loose. is that a viable plan or would throwingin some yeast nutrient get it to finsh. Im afraid to rack it off to a bin as it has fermented some bit. Not sure but i think it should be savable........would i need a full pack of yeast or would that be overkill ? also if nutrient is to be used how much of it as ive never used it before.
cheers,,,,,and heres hoping i can save it...

[Hoppkins]

Tough situation. If he has racked into a keg then a lot of the yeast from the bottom of the fermentation bin has likely been seperated out so as you say the only way to get it going again would be to repitch. That may cause totally cloudy beer though.

Give it a go, at 1.020 and with that taste it cant be very pleasant so i guess there isnt much to lose :s

[brianboru]

thanks. it tastes terribley sweet undrinkable without any particularly bad flavours so i dont think infection is an issue. I think he may have pitched at too high a temp or somthing as he made a lager kit that the same thing happened too also . I have some Safale yeast at hand so i will repitch in the keg and cross fingers...Ive never had to dump a batch and although this isnt mine as such i want to save it even if its not great ....cloudy would be ok as i can serve it in earthen ware mugs and put up with taste once its acceptable.....

[6470zzy]

I don't necessarily agree that by pitching another packet of yeast that you are going to get cloudy beer as a result. The beer will drop clear, especially with S-04 yeast which has a high flocculation character. If after fermenting you find that you don't like the clarity then you can always add some gelatin to clear things up.

Cheers