Mash too high on Lagunitas IPA clone?

Brewed Jamil's Lagunitas IPA clone. Recipe calls for 158-160 degree mash, so I did. Followed the recipe to the letter, pitched a starter of 1968, fermented at 66 degrees. After 3 days fermentation slowed way down, i raised the temp to 68-69 and fermentation stopped a day later.

Let it sit for a couple days, checked gravity and it's at 1.024. That's only 62% attenuation by my calculations. Figured that was way too low since i was targeting 1.017 range.

Raised temp to 70, and pitched a half pack of Nottingham, which didn't do anything. Is this beer done? Would a high mash temp cause that little attenuation? It takes pretty good although it's sweet. I'd like to dry hop and then bottle in a few days, but not going to waste my time if this beer is ruined or may cause bottle bombs.

I bottled the lagunitas IPA and Censored about 6 weeks ago. The recipe I used said to mash at 156. That's what I did and there is just enough residual sweetness. I think they came out awesome. My Censored ended up at 7.5% and FG of 1.014. the IPA is 6.8% and I believe(no notes here) 1.016.

You are probably done fermenting since you mashed so high. Your post doesn't say the total time in primary so far, but I'm assuming that you need to let it be for awhile longer. How long has it been in primary?

BreckBastion said:

How long has it been in primary?

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Brewed on 7-10-09. So 11 days in primary so far. Fermentation pretty much stopped on the 14th, and it's just been sitting still ever since.

Yea, your fermentation must be done. I'd give it some time on the cake though. If it was me and I wanted to dry hop, i'd just open it up about 7 days prior to bottling and toss the hops right in the primary. That's just what I would do in this case. Usually, I 2ndary for dry hopping.

Could be a number of factors, but FWIW I should mention that the actual mash temp the brewery uses is in fact 160F.

In future, simply adding yeast to already fermenting or fermented beer won't likely help a stuck or stalled fermentation.

The yeast will be thrown into an alcoholic environment, and won't be metabolizing sugars yet, so it will just sink to the bottom. However, if you make a little starter and get that yeast going for 12-24hrs, it will continuing metabolizing sugars once it hits the actual beer.

Did you do a starch conversion test? Did you use the same base malt?

WorryWort said:

Could be a number of factors, but FWIW I should mention that the actual mash temp the brewery uses is in fact 160F.

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Yea, you're right. The IPA is 160 and the Censored is 156. I mashed both at 156. I really like the way they came out though.

BreckBastion said:

Yea, you're right. The IPA is 160 and the Censored is 156. I mashed both at 156. I really like the way they came out though.

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Totally.
160 isn't the same across every system, even for the same beer. There are a lot of factors and variables in your process. Obviously we're not doing the exact same things as Lagunitas, and if we are, we aren't making enough money!

artbrau said:

Did you do a starch conversion test? Did you use the same base malt?

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Used 2-row pale for the base, yes. Did not do a test, but I always check gravity post sparge. My pre-boil gravity reading was 1.053 which was spot on my target for the recipe.

My conclusion is that the beer is done, and the the mash temp for the recipe is too high a mash temp for my system. I will re-brew and mash at 156 next time.