[majorvices]

I don't know, it sounds to me like you racked too early.  It might clean up if you warm the beer up and add a big pitch of actively fermenting wort.

I totally missed the part where he racked off the yeast. Ooops. Pretty hard to fix now. Agree a big, healthy yeast slurry or active starter may help. But I have found it is hard to restart a stalled fermentation.

I would recommend never racking off a yeast before fermentation is complete - especially not a highly floccing strain. I have had best results by letting the fermentation finish completely, and then even letting the beer sit in the primary for another few days afterward. There's nothing to worry about letting the beer sit in contact with the yeast a few days. In fact a primary fermenation is pretty safe up to 6 weeks or more.

[rbowers]

Transferred into the secondary after 5 days.  The fermentation activity had significantly dropped off it seemed but that may have been due to the low temps now that i think of it.  Anyhow I've given it a good stir in the secondary and got it warmed up and there appears to be signs of some fermentation activity again, albeit slow.  Gonna just watch it for now and see what happens.  Lessons learned I guess.  Does anyone have good recs on a thermometer for the primary carboy?  I'm a little untrusting of the fermometer as it seems to lack accuracy

[denny]

Boy, I've got maybe 10 fermometers and they're remarkably accurate.  Maybe you got a dud, dude.  And it may just be CO2 coming out of solution since you warmed it up as opposed to fermentation.

[a10t2]

Boy, I've got maybe 10 fermometers and they're remarkably accurate.

Yeah, I have five and they all agree within ~1°F. I've heard that getting them wet can ruin them though - don't know if that could be your issue.

[rbowers]

So I'm a little new to this (this is batch #5)- when fresh yeast slurry is mentioned is that the equivalent of me picking up a new package of yeast and activating it in a little sterilized warm water and adding it in or am I way off here?  Help me save my beer!

[denny]

The best thing to do would be to get about a qt. of yeast from a brewery.  I assume you're talking about dry yeast.  In that case I'd use about 3 packs.

[a10t2]

when fresh yeast slurry is mentioned is that the equivalent of me picking up a new package of yeast and activating it in a little sterilized warm water and adding it in or am I way off here?

Yeast slurry is what you would harvest from the fermenter during or after fermentation. The idea is that to restart a stuck fermentation, or to clean up a beer that was racked too early, you want a lot of yeast, and you want it to be relatively fresh. If you don't have any slurry or anyone around who could give you some, your best bet is to make a new starter and pitch it at high krausen.

[rbowers]

It's probably me but what color on the fermometer is the actual temp- I get shades of brown, green, and blue spanning about 6 degrees (that's what I meant by lacking accuracy). I've always gone with the middle one but that's a guess