1.024 should I pitch more yeast?

[slyjeremybrewer]

It's an Imperial Porter... OG started at 1.094! It's been 7 days and I'm @ 1.024. It's been holding steady at this for 3 days now. I used California Ale Yeast strain. I want to rack to secondary but the gravity seems a little high still. should I pitch more yeast? The alcohol level is fine for me right where it's at, I'm just more concerned about any off flavors that might come up. the beer tastes pretty good right now... chocolate porter...yummmm!

 

[jourelemode]

It's an Imperial Porter... OG started at 1.094! It's been 7 days and I'm @ 1.024. It's been holding steady at this for 3 days now. I used California Ale Yeast strain. I want to rack to secondary but the gravity seems a little high still. should I pitch more yeast? The alcohol level is fine for me right where it's at, I'm just more concerned about any off flavors that might come up. the beer tastes pretty good right now... chocolate porter...yummmm!

pitching more yeast wont do you any good...just leave it alone for a few more weeks. it'll get there

 

[a10t2]

Can you post the full recipe (well, just the fermentables). Then someone can try to make an educated guess as to whether or not it's finished.

If it is stuck, then to restart fermentation in a ~9% ABV beer, you'll need to pitch a ton of yeast, ideally yeast that's already active.

Are you going to be bottling or kegging? If you're kegging, and it's under-attenuated, but tastes good, there's no real danger. With bottles you'd risk explosions.

 

[slyjeremybrewer]

recipe in short- partial mash single rest @ 154 degrees... 2 3/4 lbs of 2row, 2 lbs of munich, 1 1/2 lbs of brown, 1 1/4 lbs of chocolate, 1 lb of crystal 120, 8lbs of pale liquid.. 1oz magnum @ 60 min, 1/2 oz of goldings @ 10min, 1 cup cocoa powder @ 5 min. used yeast starter built up twice with 1/2 cup of LME in 2 cups of water each time( WLP 001). gona put in bottles.

 

[a10t2]

OK, you didn't mash particularly low, and between the C120 and the extract there's probably a fair amount of unfermentables in there. Believe it or not, that's also a pretty small starter for the OG. The Wyeast calculator says that even on a stirplate it would result in about 12 million cells/mL, and in a beer this big I'd target more like 18-20. Without a stirplate it's less than half of that.

Anyway, if I had to guess I'd say that at 75% ADF it's just done.

 

[slyjeremybrewer]

that's what I was thinking too. the OG was supposed to be a bit lower ( 1.084) I did agitate the starters often... every time I walked by. I know it's not as good as a stir plate but it's the best I've got at the moment. So rack to secondary for a couple of weeks then? It's almost 7 gallons in primary right now so I'm gonna pull off a 1/2 gal and let it sit on some bourbon, vanilla beans, and oak chips.... man I love to experiment!!!!

 

[a10t2]

Personally I'd leave it on the yeast for a total of a month or so, and skip the secondary. Unless you're planning to oak all of it.

Even if you do go to a secondary, for a beer this big I'd do two weeks in primary minimum.

 

[slyjeremybrewer]

o k I'll give it a try, flying out to Hawaii on the 8th for a week so that still works with my timeline...thanks again for the tips!