Belgian strong fermentation woes

I made a Belgian strong (2.5gal all grain, with 1lb clear candi sugar at flame-out) on 2/15.

She had a starting gravity of 1.090, and was active as all get-out this first 6 days (blew through the airlock, and was burping like crazy through the blow-off tube for 5 straight days nonstop).

All was quiet for a couple of days (2/22-2/24) and so I went ahead and racked to secondary on 2/24, pretty much the same schedule I've done with all of my beers for the past two years.

I took a gravity reading as I was racking, and it had only dropped ~.02 to 1.070 (1.068-1.070). I was shocked! Absolutely shocked. I figured I would have been well on my way to my expected FG of 1.022 by now.

I used a stepped up 1.5L starter from a the dregs of a bomber of Blanche de Chambly, and like I said, it took off like crazy right after I pitched.

I counted 1 bubble in the airlock about an hour after racking to secondary after watching for one minute. Doesn't seem to be doing a whole lot. Ambient temperature is 68F (20 Celsius).

Should I do another starter and re-pitch, wait it out? Any suggestions are appreciated. This is my first big beer and first beer with bottle-harvested yeast. :

What temperature is it at?

How are you checking gravities?

Sounds like you might be checking with a refractometer but not compensating your fg for the alcohol? If not it will give you a false reading.

GinSlinger said:

How are you checking gravities?

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I took a sample of the wort/beer when I was racking to secondary and put it in my hyrdrometer. It came in at ~ 1.068-1.070, and when I tasted it was a pure sugar water. Extremely sweet. Still wort.

The ambient temperature is 68*F (20*C).

You racked far too soon. You will need the yeast to reproduce a lot at this point . . . without oxygen. It's going to take a long time if it happens. You shouldn't rack based around the calendar, but based on gravity readings.

You may get the yeast a little more active by boosting the temperature a little. Belgian yeasts are usually treated to a gradual rise in temps as they progress. There are quite a few threads hereabouts on that topic.

I'm not familiar with the yeast you're using, or how strong the culture was you grew, so I'm afraid I can't offer you any specifics. I suspect you're not going to see much action for a week or so as the yeast reproduce--if they can at this point. You may be forced to pitch a healthy starter at some point, but right now raise the temps to the low 70s gradually and wait to see if you start getting any action.

Stepping up yeast from the dregs of a single bottle would take a very large number of steps.

Big beers require more yeast, more O2.

I would "start over" re-aerate, pitch a fresh starter at high kraeusen. Fortunately, belgians are complex and clean up well, so it should still turn out fine.

OP, any updates or progress to report?
i ask b/c i had a strong dark start at .088 and "stall" at .024 - it would have been ok at this abv (8%ish) but i still wanted to reach the target dryness, so i aerated, pitched another pack after a quick starter... nothing happened after a day so i added a pound of candi sugar i happened to have, then the airlock started and i can see some good activity via co2 bubbles. the quick math shows a 46 point gain, so my 5 gal batch should get 8 pts off the final.. or more, with age? that will be what i am looking to do here, get down to .014 or lower.
btw, i used safbrew t-58 for both pitches. started at 67 and raised one degree per day until i got to 72. now it's in a second fermentation at 77. this is my first belgian strong dark so if anyone has tips.. do tell!
mike