Did my Stout stall? Gravity question...

[aehernandez]

Hi everyone,

Relatively new homebrewer here with a question about the gravity of a Stout I'm close to bottling. Quick background: a month ago, I brewed a Chocolate Hazelnut stout with extract and steeped grains. My starting gravity was pretty high at 1.056. I've been monitoring the fermentation and letting the beer mellow out a bit and been somewhat stumped by the fact that the gravity seems to have stalled at 1.025.

This seems to be a bit high to me and I'm unsure what to do if it is. Additionally, by my calculations this puts the ABV around 4.2ish which is well under what I was shooting for. Here's the grain bill, any help would be fantastic:

6.6# Golden Light Extract
0.5# Black Patent
0.75# Chocolate Malt
0.5# Roasted Barley

I used White Labs WLP004-Irish Ale for the yeasties.

Thanks in advance...

 

[Oldsock]

004 and extract could combine to give you a high final gravity. What temperature did you ferment at? Did you make a starter? Did you aerate?

I'd pitch a pack of a more attenuative dry yeast to get it down below 1.020. As it is you are just over 50% attenuation, I'd worry about the yeast waking up in the bottle and over carbonating it.

 

[aehernandez]

Thanks for the reply, Oldsock. Fermented at a pretty consistent 65-68, however, here in LA we had a pretty cold and rainy (for our standards) week prior to Christmas and I'm reasonably certain that the fermenter dipped to the lower 60s--and possibly hit 60--for a couple of days. I warmed it up in response, but regardless, the 1.024 gravity had already been reached and according to my reading never changed. My point is that despite the cold, it looks like the fermentation had already been stuck.

I did not make a starter. I did vigorously aerate. For what it's worth, the yeast initially fermented very aggressively and I almost, *almost* needed to make a blow off tube after the mess that started a-bubblin'...

That said, yesterday I racked into a carboy (which provided, I think, some gentle aeration) and placed it in a warmer spot in the house. This morning, noticed a bit more trub on the bottom and the inside of the carboy is sweaty so it might be back in business. Additionally the cork-airlock has some pressure against it, suggesting that the CO2 is back in business.

Any further thoughts very much welcome. I'm still learning...