Need help: HUGE beer stuck

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Mischief_Brewing

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Hey all, it's been a while since I've been around, but I've definitely been brewing :)

I've got a dark lord clone that started at 1.138 and stuck at 1.042 (+/- 12.5%). I've done everything to try to knock it down another 10 points to no avail. It's been over a year now and I'm giving up and am going to brew a lower gravity batch and mix the two to get 10 gallons of a drinkable beer.

Here's where I'm at a loss. Is there a calculator of some kind out there that will help me figure out what gravity I need to end up with 10 gallons of 10% beer with a FG in the high 20s?

I was thinking I could target around 1.085, but have no idea how to record gravities when there will be 12.5% alcohol being blended in at fermentation.

Thanks for any help you can provide!
 
Five gallons of 1.138 and 5 gallons of 1.032 will give you 10 gallons at 1.085.

Edit: That came from Beer Smith 2. You could download a free copy and play around with the numbers. It's in the tool tab, dilution.
 
Amylase enzyme + champagne yeast should do the trick. Now the fun part is calculating how much amylase to bring it down 10 points :)
 
I've never used amylase but was thinking the same thing. The reason I've never tried is what rhamilton suggested. How much to use? To much and it can bring the gravity to below zero I believe.
 
At 12.5%, the yeast is probably dead. Just pitch Champagne yeast. Do the amylase AFTER the champagne yeast if you want it to go further.
 
I tried amylase. Didn't budge. Added champagne yeast, didn't budge. Did both twice.

I'll see if I can figure out beer smith.

So basically I ignore the fact that the stuck beer is at 1.042 and just calculate off the OG and split the difference between the new and old. Think there will be problems with the yeast since there will already be a good amount of alcohol in it to start?
 
My bad. I totally screwed that up, the beer smith thing. I'm not sure it will work in BSII. I put in 1.138 as the gravity but it is 1.042. But 1.138 down to 1.042 is close to 10% abv.

How does it taste?
 
1.138 to 1.042 is 12.8% by volume, 10.2% by weight.

I figure that if I blend it with a 1.070 of the same recipe, I should be at a blended 1.10# if it were at the OG of the first beer, which if I get any sort of decent attenuation, I should be able to land right around 10%.

I started this one with safale 05, racked it onto a fresh cake of 099 high gravity when it finished, and then forgot about it for 6 months. When I checked gravity before racking over to secondary for the oak cubes, I saw it was stuck in the 40s.

I added amylase and a package of 1118 and waited a month. Nothing happened. Added more amylase and another package of 1118 and ignored it for another 8 months. Tried it a few months back and it was still at 1.042 :(

It's super delicious/complex, but cloyingly sweet. I couldn't drink more than 6 ounces at a time.

I'm crushing the grains tonight and will brew this blender batch after work Weds. I really hope this works. I want to be drinking this by my birthday in October....
 
1.138 to 1.042 is 12.8% by volume, 10.2% by weight.

Geez.. I should have just stayed in bed today, can't seem to get anything right. You MB are definitely on your A game. I think I'll ride the short bus tomorrow.

Hope your beer turns out great! :mug:

BTW.. no sarcasm intended.
 
I heard the high gravity yeast is a super ***** to use. Did you re oxygenate?
 
I splashed the hell out of it on transfer, and considering it was a fresh cake from a 1.080 beer that I moved after 6 days, it should have worked.

I think I just created a toxic environment for any yeast that I introduced. Safale 05 took it to 12% on its own...
 
Dude, your beer isn't stuck, it's DONE. There is no more fermentable sugar left in that beer, even the WLP099 isn't going to help you there. A quick google search shows that various vintages of Dark Lord have had their FGs measured between 1.033 and 1.064 (!!!).
 
daksin said:
A quick google search shows that various vintages of Dark Lord have had their FGs measured between 1.033 and 1.064 (!!!).

Whoah. 1.064 is sickeningly sweet!

This is what I thought and why I'm going for the blend. I'm going to mash pretty low and hope that the mix of the two gets me into the low thirties or high 20s final.
 
daksin said:
Dude, your beer isn't stuck, it's DONE. There is no more fermentable sugar left in that beer, even the WLP099 isn't going to help you there. A quick google search shows that various vintages of Dark Lord have had their FGs measured between 1.033 and 1.064 (!!!).

I don't agree. My barleywine went from a similar gravity to a much lower finish, and that was a single packet of safale05. I don't have notes in front of me but I recall it being 14%. This beer shouldn't have quit at 12. ESPECIALLY with a second yeast added.
 
The batch is at roughly 70% attenuation, which isn't bad even though it is sweet. More yeast hasn't helped it, so I would agree that it is done. Blending is about your only option. Good luck.
 
I splashed the hell out of it on transfer, and considering it was a fresh cake from a 1.080 beer that I moved after 6 days, it should have worked.

I think I just created a toxic environment for any yeast that I introduced. Safale 05 took it to 12% on its own...

Why would you pitch from an already high gravity brew onto an even higher gravity brew? The yeast was probably stressed already fermenting that first beer out. Like others have said, 70% attenuation isn't terrible. But I'd never pitch the yeast cake from a 1.080 beer personally.
 
Once you add 1118 you're pretty much screwed. That yeast will prevent any other yeast from living in the same environment. So adding any other yeast cakes is a waste of time. Also since it's a champagne yeast it probably won't do very well with maltose or some of the complex malt sugars, meaning you might actually end up with more residual sweetness than if you stayed with just ale yeast.

I'd say you've done everything you can at this point. Maybe dry hop the hell out of it to try to balance the sweetness?
 
Update: with 23 minutes left in the boil, I dragged the bucket with the "stuck" beer out of the basement so I could rack half of it to the now sanitized carboy and took a reading/sample. 1.028!!!!!!! 14.4% ABV and absolutely amazing. Going to put it back away to age a bit more and probably bottle the whole damn batch for contests in the distant future.

Thanks for all the help!

Bonus is that I now have a decent stout with a 1.070 SG going into the fermenter tonight that should be set able by the end if Oct when I wanted to serve the DL clone.

So happy!
 
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