Advice on bringing down gravity on a big beer

I'm still new to brewing and need some advice. I'm on my 6th beer. It's a Russian Imperial Stout. I followed Jamil's RIS recipe, converted a bit for my system, and changes to partial mash to fit the grain in my MLT. Here are the grains I used (5.5 gal batch):
8 lb Pale Malt
5.75 lb Pilsner LME
1.2 lb roasted barley
0.8 lb Light Chocolate Malt
0.8 lb Special B
0.4 lb Caramunich III
0.5 lb Chocolate malt

I mashed this at 154 for 60 min, and ended up with a starting gravit of 1.096, just a point over what I was shooting for. I pitched this on top of the cake from a porter brewed with WPL002. This is the third beer I've brewed from this vial of yeast.

I got a good fermentation. It's been 2 weeks now, and my gravity has stayed at 1.035 for 4 days. I did the math, and I'm at 62% aparrent attenuation. According to White Labs, this strain of yeast has 63-70% attenuation. I looked at the second beer I brewed with this vial, and that ended up being 64% attenuation. The second beer was a lower ABV, so I think that I may be at my yeast's limit on my current beer. I realize now that I probably used the wrong yeast for this beer.

I'd like some advice on how I should proceed on getting the gravity of the beer down further. WPL002 has high flocculation, so I've tried swirling the carboy once a day for the last four days, and I haven't seen a drop in gravity. I don't know if the swirling will help or not. I plan on letting the beer age for a year after I bottle it, so I don't want to oxygenate the beer, and have it taste bad after aging for a while.

The other thing I've read about doing is adding yeast, either through making another starter, or making another beer and racking this beer onto the cake of the first beer.

Any suggestions on how I should proceed here? I apologize for the long-winded question. I'm having a baby in 2 weeks, and this is the beer for Baby's first birthday party--I want it to be good!

Well, first of all, I think kids should be at least 2 years old before their first homebrew!

My first thought was just to repitch a yeast with a higher tollerance. You will probably end of with th eflavor profile of the original yeast, so I wouldn't worry too much about what you repitch.

I think some people use beano to unstick a stuck ferm, but I have no experience with that and think it can really dry out your beer. I vote repitch.

Haha, yeah, no homebrew for Baby, just the guests. I was thinking about repitching with a stronger, clean yeast. I guess that means I want a yeast with high alcohol tolerance, good attenuation, and a neutral flavor. I don't have a lot of experience, though, and I'm not sure what I should use.

I don't think WLP002 was a very good choice for this beer if you wanted to get good attenuation. 63-70% attenuation are under optimal circumstances and I would say this beer is not optimal for that yeast.
Build up a starter of WLP007 (dry english) and then pitch it and watch it hit the numbers. I did a 1.090 english barleywine with a 4L starter of WLP007 and I got to 78% attenuation in 2 days and 80% attenuation in 4. I think you will find the flavor profile of WLP007 at the right temperature to be similar to that of WLP002.

What temp did you ferment at? With high gravity beers I usually raise the temp near the end of fermentation to help ensure full attenuation.

Package of S04 would be my choice - easy & fast, you will know pretty quickly if it is working and it usually is done in a few days.

Thanks, all. I fermented in a water bath. The temperatures (of the bath) were 66 to 68 during active fermentation. Assuming that the beer was probably hotter during fermentation, this may have been a little too hot.

As for re-pitching, is it better to use a yeast that matches what I already have, or use something that's more neutral to finish it off? It looks like WPL007 will match my yeast closely. I don't know about S-04 (the Fermentis website didn't have too much information)

saq said:

I don't think WLP002 was a very good choice for this beer if you wanted to get good attenuation. 63-70% attenuation are under optimal circumstances and I would say this beer is not optimal for that yeast.
Build up a starter of WLP007 (dry english) and then pitch it and watch it hit the numbers. I did a 1.090 english barleywine with a 4L starter of WLP007 and I got to 78% attenuation in 2 days and 80% attenuation in 4. I think you will find the flavor profile of WLP007 at the right temperature to be similar to that of WLP002.

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OP, I'm with saq on the WLP007. It's a super active muncher. You can stop the fermentation when you hit your target gravity. You won't be able to pitch with the cake though, but I don't think you would want too.

+1 on repitching before trying something like beano. Beano doesn't help your yeast eat up the available sugar. It converts unfermentables to sugar, so it'd just make your problem worse, then when you repitch it'll end up very dry.

Since you're following Jamil's recipe, maybe follow what I've heard his advice is for these situations, repitch an ACTIVE yeast starter. So prepare the starter and pitch the whole thing it when it's at full activity, not after it's done. There should be enough going on in the RIS flavor-wise that a few liters of DME "beer" won't hurt it. He doesn't think much of sprinkling in dry yeast, but it seems a lot of folks on HBT have gone that route with success.

Good luck with the beer and baby in your future