Denny's Favorite: stuck or just pokey?

I brewed 10 gal of IPA last Saturday with Denny's Favorite. I made a starter, but I'm pretty sure I didn't give it enough time to get as big as it needed to so I'm also pretty sure I under-pitched. I did one vial split between 2 half gallon growlers for 24 hours. Had some good activity in the growlers, but I don't see how it could've been big enough. Even so, there was pretty good airlock activity after 12 hours.

Anyway, that's done and there's no redoing it.

OG at pitch was 1.064. I took a grav on Friday and it was at 1.030. Ferm temp was 62° for 7 days. I raised the ferm temp to 70° and sloshed the buckets (gently) to rouse the yeast. I got some very slow airlock activity, and today it was at 1.022, giving me an apparent attenuation of 62%. That seems pretty low for Denny's Favorite since Wyeast puts the expected attenuation at 74-76%. I would need my FG to hit 1.014 to get 75% apparent attenuation and I just don't know if it's going to get there.

Also, the kreusen hasn't dropped and the beer looks like natural orange juice - opaque and lots of hop and break floaties in it. There's no infection/nastiness problems with it, I tasted the sample this evening, and it tastes like an IPA should at this point in the game. It just looks like

I'm not going to do anything until I take another grav on Friday. At that point, if it's still high I'm going to toss in some re-hydrated dry yeast, either Notty or S-05. But I do need to get this sucker into secondary and clearing pretty quick. It's going to a competition, and the drop-dead bottling date is 3/18.

My question is, will mixing the yeast strains give me any funkyness that the hops won't cover? It has a pretty aggressive hop schedule - an oz of Magnums and 5 oz. of 7 C's blend in the boil and 2 oz each of Cascade, Centennial and & 7 Cs ready for dry hop.

EDIT:

I did just read more about attenuation on the Wiki, and it mentioned that alpha amylase is inactive above 175°. That might be an issue. It was pretty cold here last Saturday and I was brewing in my garage. It played hell with my temps. I over-compensated with my sparge water for the first batch, and the mash temp hit 180° briefly. As soon as I saw it, I ran it out without a rest and then re-sparged to 170°. It wasn't above 175° for more than a few minutes. Think that's what's effecting the attenuation?

Sparge water temperature isn't going to affect enzyme action, as this is done post-mash. What is your grain bill? A lot of times, people wonder why they get crappy attenuation and you see that they used like 2 lbs of crystal malts in a pale ale.... On another note, I've used Denny's Favorite before and have experienced less than normal attenuation. a pale ale I made went from 1.055 to 1.018 and that was mashing at 151F.

I doubt you will get any funkyness from using another yeast strain. Go with the s-05, I believe that Denny's fav is a variation of Wyeast American Ale II...so it would be more similar than using notty.

Thanks, CS.

Grain bill was 20# 2-row and 4# Crystal 20. You saying that I needed to use something more fermentable than Crystal malt? Maybe should have done 23# 2-row and 1# of C-60?

That's alot of crystal. I would use 1 pound Max especially in an ipa. I wouldn't expect to get much lower on your ft.

So what will be the up-shot of that much C-20, aside from low attenuation? With the hop schedule I used, I don't know that there will be too much sweetness to it. If anything it might serve to balance out the hops a bit? Maybe it won't clear as much as I'd like?

If you fg bottoms out at 1.020. You will have residual sweetness and lots of hop bitterness won't hide it. High IBUs will serve to balance out the sweetness and make a perfectly enjoyable praiseworthy brew. It just may not hit your target style. Let us know the FG and what you did to get there.

I have never used that much crystal in a brew so I can't honestly say what's going to happen. I would like to hear how it turns out though. For clarity cold crashing works I've even used biofine and had good results. Let us know how it turns out.

Well, I took a grav tonight, and it's down to 1.016 (1.017 est.). I guess you could say I'm pretty happy about that! Also, the aroma and taste are incredible!! Now, on to the 6 oz of dry hops and secondary! Woo-hoo!