Dry stout advice

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fishersfirst

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Hi folks.

Have a dry English stout in the fermenter ATM.

Recipe as follows
Pale malt 88%
Crystal 4%
Chocolate 4%
Roast 4%

OG: 1.043
FG: 1.010
Abv: 4.4%

Mash at 152F

My gravity after 5 days read 1.014 and then again 3 days later 1.014.
In hind sight I know that I may have mashed a bit high, and with an OG of 1.043 it was always going to be less forgiving but is there anything I can do to squeeze a few more points out or am I done?

Not too keen to drink a 3.5% stout!

Cheers
 
What temperature is it fermenting at?

You can try raising the temp into the low to mid 70's -- this is usually too warm, but there's too little fermenting left to be done for you to get a noticeable change in flavor. You can also move your fermenter around some to rouse the yeast, just enough to get some of the trub off the bottom and back into suspension, not enough to splash the beer around or anything.
 
Why are you calling it a porter? It's still a stout--just a lite one. The lowest ABV for a stout--according to the style guide--is 4%. This is also the lowest for a porter. Who cares if you aren't going to be sending it to competition. Besides if you share it with your BMC friends they will still talk about how amazingly strong your stout is. See it as a stage on the way to your perfect stout.
 
cluckk said:
Why are you calling it a porter? It's still a stout--just a lite one. The lowest ABV for a stout--according to the style guide--is 4%. This is also the lowest for a porter. Who cares if you aren't going to be sending it to competition. Besides if you share it with your BMC friends they will still talk about how amazingly strong your stout is. See it as a stage on the way to your perfect stout.

True, it's a learning curve, I'll have about 35 pints of it to think of the errors of my ways :)
 
A 3.5 ABV beer means you can have an extra glass and not be hammered. If it tastes good, I see no problem here.

EDIT: IN the meantime, check your thermometer to make sure it's calibrated correctly. You might have been mashing at something other than 152 if your thermometer is off. Cheers and get working on that next batch!
 
JonM said:
check your thermometer to make sure it's calibrated correctly. You might have been mashing at something other than 152 if your thermometer is off.

This is sage advice. I have one thermometer that for some reason started registering 8 degrees cooler. Using it would really ruin a mash.
 
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