should final gravity be this high?!?!

I brewed my own recipe, a sweet cream stout.

Ingredients:

-7lbs dark LME
-1lbs dark DME
-8oz dark crystal malt 60l
-8oz chocolate malt
-8oz roasted non-malted black barley
-8oz black patent
-12 oz maltodextrin
-1lbs lactose
-2oz perle hops
-White Labs London Ale yeast

I brewed it on 2/20, been sitting at 66-68 degrees for the last 20 days. Orignial gravity was 1.074. Took a gravity reading tonight in anticipation of bottling tomorrow.

Gravity reading: 1.032!!

I never worked with maltodextrin or lactose, so I don't know what's normal. But is 1.032 an indication of stuck fermentation, or could it possibly be that high? I tasted it. It tasted sweet, but not too malty. There was a nice 2-3" krausen layer for the first 4 or so days of fermentation, that fell after about 9 days. I plan on taking another gravity reading tomorrow just to see if its the same (I usually never do that since I leave it in the primary for 3 weeks). But yeah....is it ok to have a 1.032 gravity reading? Doing the math, it seems like it should be about 5.5% ABV with those readings, but thought I should a bit more since my last brew with the same amount of malt extract and steeping grains gave me 6.3% ABV.

Another probably RDWHAHB answer, but in that tasting, I was so suprised by the sweetness that I had to sample it again with a spoon. Yup...same spoon I used to try it the first time, in my mouth, back in the beer, unsanitized. Should I be worried? Also, there was some condensation on the underside of the lid for the bucket that dripped in the beer. Is there anything to worry about there?

Thanks guys! :rockin:

sounds about right with that recipe and that yeast. I would have left out the maltodextrin. 1 lb of Lactose is plenty.

Well thats promising.

Anyone else want to help reassure me too? The more people saying that FG is fine the better I'll feel.

Also, concerns about the spoon and condensation on the lid?

There's a lot of unfermentables in there, it should be fine.

Seems high still. Beersmith suggests it should get down to 1.016. What you cuold do is add a pound on honey to the fermenter to get it going again and I'd put money on it going into the teens.

boostsr20 said:

Seems high still. Beersmith suggests it should get down to 1.016. What you cuold do is add a pound on honey to the fermenter to get it going again and I'd put money on it going into the teens.

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Beersmith doesn't take into account the unfermentables. A sweet cream stout with all of those unfermentables (from the dark DME and LME, the maltodextrine, the lactose, the crystal). No way that beer would go under about 1.027 at the lowest, even with a well attenuating ale yeast. I wouldn't add any more fermentables to it.

You wanted it sweet, you got it sweet

I would wait a few days and take another gravity reading. If it is still 1.032 then bottle. While it makes sense it is that high with your recipe, if you still have fermentable sugars and bottle too early, you could get some bottle bombs.

YooperBrew said:

Beersmith doesn't take into account the unfermentables. A sweet cream stout with all of those unfermentables (from the dark DME and LME, the maltodextrine, the lactose, the crystal). No way that beer would go under about 1.027 at the lowest, even with a well attenuating ale yeast. I wouldn't add any more fermentables to it.

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Huh, I was under the impression that Beersmith took that into account. You learn something new here everyday.

boostsr20 said:

Huh, I was under the impression that Beersmith took that into account. You learn something new here everyday.

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Me too, this explains alot for me

boostsr20 said:

Huh, I was under the impression that Beersmith took that into account. You learn something new here everyday.

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No. In this case, I'm smarter than the software!

Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Beersmith and rely on it for all of my calculations and water temperatures. But I've noticed that it seems to give you 75%ish attenuation, no matter what the ingredients.

Try it for yourself. Put 100% honey in one recipe, and 100% crystal malt in one recipe. It will give you about the same FG estimate.

Yeah, hopefully Brad gets that "fixed" in the new version. I love Beersmith, but it's only a program, run by a dumb box that can only differentiate between 1 & 0.

Why dont you raise the temp a little bit and shake the fermenter a little bit to wake up the yesties. Give it a few days and see if you can get it to drop a few points. Maybe it will go down to 1.027 as Yoopie says.

Well, brought the temp of the room up to around 70 after checking the gravity middday yesterday. Checked it midday today, and it remained the same. So I bottled.

Looks and tastes pretty good for the problems I had with it. But I did make one screw up. I bottled half as the recipe I originally posted, then added some pure vanilla extract to make a vanilla sweet cream stout. Well, I read a few posts recommending 4oz, so I added 4 oz.

Yup....4oz in 2.5 gal...should've cut that amount in half. So looks like I'll probably have a VERY vanilla tasting stout!

Wow, beer looks awesome. a RIS I assume?

wyzazz said:

There's a lot of unfermentables in there, it should be fine.

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That's exactly what I was thinking.

Just did the same thing as the OP with same FG on a similar looking stout (here)

No bottle bombs yet...we'll see though. I was afraid of mixing up the primary fermenter again, due to potential of off-flavors, but will try that next time.