New To Forum: Simple Question

I'm a first time brewer, your help would be greatly appreciated...I'm brewing an IPA, which is in secondary and my current G is only at 1.05, meaning there must be lots of unfermented sugars still remaining.. The goal is 1.010). I used a blowout for 12 days from all the activity too. Question: should I pitch more yeast, and keep it in secondary longer than typical?
Primary: 14 days (OG:1.073)
Secondary: 2 days (Current G: 1.052)

kit consisting of:
white labs liquid yeast
9 lbs light LME
1 lb malt grain
4.25 bittering hops
2.25 dry hopped
irish moss

I think you may have underpitched this one...did you use a starter?

no starter, no just one vial of white labs. No activation necessary beyond letting it acclimate from cool to hot

I seriously think you may be having an issue reading your gravity. That seems like a very unlikely gravity number after 16 days.

Are you using a hydrometer? Correcting for temp? Reading the scale correctly?
Describe how you are measuring your gravity.

I'm using a hydrometer in a thief. The beer is about 74 degrees. It measures 1.050 so it's actually around 1.0067, correct?

LandoCarthel said:

no starter, no just one vial of white labs. No activation necessary beyond letting it acclimate from cool to hot

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What do you mean "from cool to hot"...do you mean just taking out of the fridge?? Yeast isn't supposed to get "hot" necessarily.

Even though I think you did underpitch, I would tend to agree with Zen Brew...if you needed a blowoff and there were signs of fermentation for the majority of the primary ferm, I'd think your gravity would be lower than 1.052

correct, fridge to room temperature. Yeah.. I'm not sure if its my math or what... first time paranoia, you know..

Sounds like a stuck fermentation if your reading is correct...take another reading tomorrow...if it's the same, I'd pitch another vial of the white labs yeast...

That was a fairly big beer you brewed. I make starters for everything now (learned my lesson about 6 batches ago)...but it's recommended to at least make a starter for anything over 1.06.

kbuzz said:

Sounds like a stuck fermentation if your reading is correct...take another reading tomorrow...if it's the same, I'd pitch another vial of the white labs yeast...

That was a fairly big beer you brewed. I make starters for everything now (learned my lesson about 6 batches ago)...but it's recommended to at least make a starter for anything over 1.06.

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Thank you! I'll do that next time around.

well I suppose I'll pitch tomorrow and let things down back down again. I also have a bag of aromatic hops in there.. any concern about that?

You will more than likely lose a good bit of the aroma through the airlock when the fermentation picks up again.

Was your yeast expired? Have you calibrated your hydrometer? Are you sure it's 1.05 and not 1.005? Did you brew with water in addition to your extract, or did you just boil straight extract? I'm sorry for the dumb questions but there is no way that an extract beer with that OG should finish that high.

slowbie said:

Was your yeast expired? Have you calibrated your hydrometer? Are you sure it's 1.05 and not 1.005? Did you brew with water in addition to your extract, or did you just boil straight extract? I'm sorry for the dumb questions but there is no way that an extract beer with that OG should finish that high.

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I'm uncertain if the yeast was expired..
I'm reading 1.050 (50) in the red on the hydrometer.
2.5 gallons with extract, then added the remaining 2.5 gallons after brewing.

What does the hydrometer read in water?

slowbie said:

what does the hydrometer read in water?

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1.000

Really strange to end that high when you're at 74*. what temp did you pitch at?

tesilential said:

Really strange to end that high when you're at 74*. what temp did you pitch at?

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65-70 degrees

so do you guys think it's alright that I've pitched a second time, in secondary, while dry hopping?

yeah, it's alright man...you might just lose a bit of the aroma as the air escapes from the air lock, but you will have beer in the end and it'll taste great!!

yes, more important to have the beer finish fermenting vs. worrying about losing a little hop aroma.

I would hit it with some Nottingham dry yeast re-hydrated per package instructions, i would use 2 packages.

for future reference, you generally don't want to move to secondary until fermentation is done in primary - you removed a lot of the yeast before they were done working

I agree with Vance. Hit it with some re-hydrated yeast and see what's going on. I would also give it a quick taste test as well. It will be sweet and bitter and not really taste like beer if the current gravity is still at 1.050