A stout - afraid to bottle it - HELP

[Melver]

So..brewed my first ever batch...no recipe...most of the rules ignored...

Wanna bottle now but I am afraid to do it and here is why:

What I used and how:

My pot fits 20 L easily
- dark munich malt 3.487 kg (22ebc)
- black malt 0.225 kg (1500ebc)
- roasted barley 0.675 kg (1450ebc)
- chocolate malt 0.113 kg (1175ebc)
----which gives me 4.5 kg (9.9208 lb) of malt

Yeast : Dry English Ale (WLP007) - 1 pack

Hops: Brewers gold 2015 - 50g at boil, 10g 20 min 'til the end

I used the MAXI BIAB and NO CHILL method to gain 23 L of wort.

I've put water on 80*C (176F), added malt which was room temperature of 21*C(69.8F),
temp went down to 73C (163.4F), stirred after half an hour (temp at 70C/158F),
second stir after one hour (65C/149F), third stir at 63C/145.4F, took the bag out and did a first Sparge with 8 L and a second Sparge with 6 L.

Pre-boil Gravity was 1.048 at 63C/145.4F

Boiled for an hour and a half, adding Sparge water when it evaporated, with hop addition at pre-mentioned times.
Left it over night on a cold tile floor to cool down.

Next day, OG at 25C/77F was 1.034 and I added my single pack of yeast.

After 12 hours it was bubbling like crazy. After 36 hours the bubbles dropped down to one bubble every 4-5 minutes.

After 10 days in a plastic fermenter I decided to do a gravity reading.
It said 1.026 at 20C/68F
48 hours later same thing.

I have sanitised everything...freak on those matters.
Reading through on-line and offline books I've realised I have underpitched yeast.
The taste of it is very nice and there are no off smells.

So, again I did something crazy.
48 hours after second SAME reading on hydrometer I transferred it to a second fermenter,
I took 2 liters of this wort, boiled it, added cca 600-700g !!!! (21-24 oz) of castor sugar and when it cooled to 20C/68F I pitched a new pack of the same yeast.
Waited 24 hours again and pitched that in what I think was Stuck Fermentation Wort.

24 hours later it was bubbling "normally" like I saw on many You-tube videos. and it was doing so for the next 5 days.
I took a reading when it stopped completely (NO BUBBLES WHAT SO EVER) and it said 1.040 at 20C/68F.

Here is the I AM AFRAID part.
From what I read I should wait until the reading goes down to 1.015 or something.
Of course, that is not the issue with beers with high starting gravity but mine is not that.
Or is it?
When I press on the lid of the second fermenter it gives off a lot of bubbles through the airlock and it springs back into place.

Took multiple refractometer readings and hydrometer reading and they are no where near the same.
Wanted to calibrate my refractometer but where I live currently I can not find destilled water.
In the pharmacy when I asked for it the lady sold me sterilised water (did not realise until I got home).

1.Should I bottle...or wait longer...or throw away?
I have no Keg option, only bottles.

2.Should I (and will it make a difference) put it in the basement where the temp is cca
12C/53.6F in the second fermenter and leave more for some time?

3.Should I leave it where it is now for a certain period more?

4.If there is no chance of bottling it, can I drink it as is?
Taste is darn good even without bubbles.
I already made a sourdough starter with some of it and the bread turned out amazing.

 

[Yooper]

The reason that the OG was so low is that you mashed way too hot (should have stayed at about 67-68C, and then added water to water it down after a too-long boil. Then the FG was high at 1.026 because you mashed way too hot.

Then you took some of the finished beer and boiled off the alcohol and added more sugar. (yuck).

Your hydrometer and refractometer don't match because they can't possibly, since a refractometer doesn't read correctly once alcohol is in the mix, as alcohol skews the refraction of light. There are conversion formulas on line that can be fairly good at estimating a refractometer reading though.

I don't know why the castor sugar didn't ferment out- it should have. Keep it somewhere at 22C for at least a week before bottling to make sure you don't have bottle bombs. If it tastes ok, and you want to drink it, it would be fine.

 

[Melver]

Hey Yooper,

Thank You for the advice.

What I did now is I roused the secondary fermenter and it started to bubble again.
My living room is at 22C.
I'll see for how long that goes and if it helps to get it down by at least a point, I'll keep doing that until I come somewhere below 1.015.
Other option I am prepared to do is bottle it in PET bottles and then closely monitor it.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

It was definitely mashed too warm but another possible issue may be the grains. The only grain with any diastatic power was the dark Munich and it may not have had enough diastatic power to convert all the grains.

 

[jrgtr42]

It was definitely mashed too warm but another possible issue may be the grains. The only grain with any diastatic power was the dark Munich and it may not have had enough diastatic power to convert all the grains.

At the temps he was mashing I'm not sure that he would have gotten full conversion with 99% 2-row.
I'm just not quite sure what was going on there.
OP: you're ending up with beer, but next time, I'd say to go but the rules / directions. Most of them are there for a reason - it's been scientifically proven why things act the way they do at each temperature. Generally you want to have your mash in the low 150 F range (sorry, don't know the Celsius conversion for that.) Personally, I like to mash my bigger stouts a couple degrees higher, in the 155 area. I find that it gives a bit more mouthfeel and a slightly sweeter finish to it. pale ales and IPAs I like around 150.