Help! Fermentation Issues w/ Irish Red!

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rsavage

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Burlington VT
So we have had an Irish Red extract brew in primary since last Monday. Fermentation started out excellent, around 66*F for a few days. Last Friday, we noticed that the airlock had fully stopped bubbling and consequently decided to take a gravity reading, which read 1.020 (FG should be 1.011 per the recipe). The cover went back on, the temperature outside went up (80-85 degrees), and without any a/c or a cool spot in the apartment the fermentation temp. rose to about 75*F. Today I took a gravity reading and still got 1.020. The yeast is Safale S-04, 11.5 grams.

So my question is, whats stopping the yeast from finishing up? I know the temperature changes probably had some effect, but would they halt the yeast altogether? I can rack to secondary if this will help, or bottle the beer, but I'm not sure which of these is the right path. Any advice would be much appreciated.
 
i would wait till 3 weeks from brew day then bottle. extract recipes are almost never as fermentable as an all grain recipe. but 9 points seems like a lot though. what was the recipe? also what was the OG?
 
Thanks for the replies, guys.

The OG of the recipe was close to 1.059, which is what the recipe specifies. The recipe was written for extract, so I assume the OG and FG specs should be accurate for using extract. I didn't realize, though, that there was that much of a gravity difference between all grain and extract brewing, which makes sense.

So I guess I'm still not sure... should I rack to secondary? Its been so warm in my house lately that I'm afraid off flavors will be strong if I don't get the beer off of that yeast. I guess that would slow down any remaining fermentation, though. Hmmm.
 
For my stuck stuck fermentation's i do

Step 1-Gentle Swirl every other day for 1 week and recheck gravity if no change i got to step 2

Step 2- gently rack over to secondary you might get lucky and have fermentation start back up from yeast being roused back into the wort after you have done this wait a week and check Gravity still no change...

Step 3- go ahead and bottle and it will still be a great beer i think :D
 
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