Originally Posted by sonvolt

Am I missing something here? Although that looks like a lot of grain, the only grain that seems fermentable is the 10 lbs. of 2-Row Pale Malt. How did you get such a high gravity reading only mashing 10 lbs of Pale Malt? I was unaware that Crystal malts could yield fermentable sugars.

Also, is that Irish Ale yeast working well at such high alcoholic levels?

Originally Posted by Jsin

The gravity booster is the oats. Man, are they hard to work with. 5 1/2 hours to sparge. But it didn't stick once and I got complete conversion.

With a big starter the Irish Ale was more than up for the task.

Originally Posted by RichBrewer

All those other grains will contribute to the gravity as well but don't ferment out like the base malt. That is one reason for the higher FG.
That is a lot of specialty grains though. What is your impression of the sweetness/malt profile?

Originally Posted by billism

5.5 hours of sparging? wow. Is that just because of the oats? I didn't know sparging could take anywhere near that long. What is the process you used?

Originally Posted by Baron von BeeGee

Gravity readings don't measure fermentable sugars, they just measure the density of the liquid regardless of what's in it, so all of the grains (some yielding fermentable sugars, some not) will end up contributing to the gravity of the wort. Note how high the FG is which indicates the presence of many unfermentable sugars (that, and the yeast may have stopped performing due to the abv).