Gravity reading too high after 2 weeks

I'm brewing a stout and the final gravity should be 1.021 or less. I'm two weeks in and the gravity reading is at 1.031. I did a reading a few days before this one and it was the same (at that point I gently stirred it up a bit). Stupidly (it was my first brew) I didn't get an OG reading, nor did I really aerate the wort before pitching from my activator pack. Rookie mistakes. Anyone got suggestions? I know - never dump beer - so I'm open to suggestions to get this thing going.

After doing some more digging on this board, I think in 3 weeks I'll rack the stout to the yeast cake of brown ale I just brewed up today and see how that goes.

Hi B. Tell us a little more about the recipe, yeast, and your process, perhaps. More details the better.

What temperature is your fermenter at?

If you want, you can boil a small amount of water and add a half pound of simple sugar. Add it in to get the yeast going again. Leave it for a couple more weeks and check gravity.

What was your og? Not areating your wort could have caused you to have a high finishing gravity. The yeast are just pooped out.

I was following a Williams stout kit, so can tell you much about the ingredients since they don't want to disclose that info. The temp was right on the whole time since I have a temp control system for my freezer - it was sitting at 68. Yeast was a Wyeast Irish Ale liquid. The smack pack had ballooned to more than an inch and a half. I think the problem has been caused by not aerating the wort (I had aerated the add-in 2 gallons of water a little bit - I was doing a partial boil - but I never aerated the whole 5 gallons).


Chalk it up to newbie-itis. Knew I had to aerate the thing, but either because it was late and I wasn't thinking or just my rush in doing this for the first time. Just brewed up the second batch this afternoon and it went much, much better.