Fermented Scotch Ale too low! How to correct?

I brewed a 5 gallon batch of Scotch Ale (1.056 OG), and left it in the primary for a week, and it fermented down to 1.004 FG. Yikes! I wanted it to be 1.015, but was too busy to check the fermentation, and in only 7 days it was down to 1.004 (Safale S04 yeast).

I don't have time to brew another and blend. Is there another way to mitigate this very dry beer? E.g., add DME? add maple syrup? Other?

Thanks!
Howard

I think that you are stuck at this point; you could try back-sweetening the beer with some sort of unfermentable sugar like lactose. This will sweeten the beer, but will not achieve the maltiness characteristic of a Scottish ale.

Could you post the recipe? I like to make Scottish ales, and prefer to mash fairly high (156-ish), boil down the first runnings, and ferment with WLP028 at about 60-62 F. It is a slow fermentation, usually fermenting about 20 points per week, but it will finish leaving the residual malty sweetness you want. Further, S-04 is an English yeast that finishes particularly dry when compared to other English yeasts (e.g. WLP002, WY1318). So for a Scottish ale I would consider this a yeast strain to avoid because the beer will almost certainly finish too dry.

+1 on the lactose but like mkeckjr said I don't think it's going to provide what you are looking for. I'm sure it'll still taste good, just not what you were looking for. What was your recipe?

I've attached a PDF of the Design tab in Beersmith. And if you can't read the file, below are the ingredients and times.

PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 60.0 mins) Water Agent 1
8.0 oz Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct
8 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US-Rahr (1.8 SRM)
1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 65L (65.0 SRM)
1 lbs Munich Bonlander Malt (10.0 SRM)
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (450.0 SRM)
0.50 oz Northern Brewer [7.90 %] - Boil 60.0 min
1.00 oz Willamette [6.20 %] - Boil 30.0 min
1.00 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 mins)
1.00 Items Servomyces (Boil 10.0 mins)
1.00 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 5.0 mins)
0.50 oz Home grown Cascade [7.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min
1.0 pkg SafAle English Ale (DCL/Fermentis #S-04) [23.66 ml]

View attachment Scotch Ale Beersmith Printout.pdf

Thanks for the recipe. Your printout says full body, no mash out, which makes me think you probably ended up mashing fairly high, and that's good, but this yeast is highly attenuative. I'll bet next time if you use a different yeast and ferment in the low 60s, you will get your desired results as far as final gravity.

As a suggestion for recipe formulation for this style, I would take a look a Noonan's book on Scotch ale. It's one of the better Classic Style Series books, in my opinion, and talks a lot about the history of the style, etc. Traditionally these beers have only two malts: a rich base malt (usually Maris Otter) and a little bit of roasted barley for color. In a 5 gallon 80/- recipe, maybe like 2 oz. You may be a little on the bitter side for this recipe when comparing this to the traditional style, and also very dark. Still may come out interesting, but given this recipe I think this fits better into maybe American brown ale given the hop choices and the color/bitterness level.

Should still taste pretty good