Pseudo Stuck fermentation - NEED HELP

When making a weizenbock, I was trying to kill the rest of my Wheat DME and added so much that my SG was 1.140. I racked the beer onto a yeast cake from a 5 gallon batch of hefeweizen(WLP300), thinking it would be a large enough amount of yeast to ferment this uber high gravity weizenbock. I kept the ferm. temp around 62 and checked the gravity w/ my new refractometer this morning and it's only at 1.065, tasted and it's still sugary sweet, obviously. Any advice on how I can get this to ferment lower w/out raising the ferm temp to churn through the rest of the sugars? Should I make a big yeast starter and pitch that and hope it gets going? It's been fermenting for 12 days so far and I still hear the blow off tube bubble once every 30 seconds but it's a weak small little bubble.

 

That's definitely a high gravity to suggest the yeast to - there might be a lot of them, but it'd still be a rude awakening having that poured on their heads. The starter idea seems like about all you could do (if you really don't want to raise the temperature; that could help). If you're shaking or using a stirplate, seal the starter with foil or an airlock for the last several hours to try to minimise the oxygen in there. That'd be the largest issue with this strategy, so do everything with O2 reduction in mind.

...'course, the amount of time you'd have to age this beast would probably bring some oxidized character no matter what! I'm curious how it turns out.

 

what does your hydrometer say?

 

My first suggestion would be to pitch a new starter of champagne yeast. Never done it, but I've heard it is a pretty neutral flavor and has high alcohol tolerance.

 

At this point you might want to check the pH. You may need to bring it up a little to give any yeast a chance. Once that is back in line some healthy new yeast with high alcohol tolerance might get you closer to your goal. The good new is your beer is pretty safe right now (low pH plus alcohol) while you figure things out.

 

What would a good ph be to bring it up to and what could I add to do that? I'm thinking of going the route of using a yeast starter, would a 200 gram 2 liter starter w/ a fresh vial of WLP 300 do the trick you think? My last weizenbock had an OG of 1.093 finished w/ at 1.022 - I'd be happy if it got there, and then it'd be wicked strong, not that I'm complaining

 

In addition to using a hydrometer as others have stated, I am curious as to why you don't want to raise the temperature. White Labs states the optimum temp for WLP300 as 68-72F. And since its been going for 12 days already, you could even probably go above that and not worry too much about off flavors.

 

I've got a friend coming over this weekend and I'll use his hydrometer, I went out an bought a refractometer only because my butterfingers broke my 2nd hydrometer and I didn't know that the refractometer is pretty much useless after fermentation begins.
As for the fermentation temperature - I was following the advice of Jamil's recipe in Brewing Classic Styles to keep it at 62

 

I took the carboy out of the Rubbermaid container that I've had it in which was the water bath that kept it cool with frozen Gatorade bottles and I noticed bubbles still so I hope it still will ferment down a little more on its own. It's already at 64/66F. Does anyone think autolysis of the yeast cells will happen since the yeast cake is from a 2wk fermentation and they'll have been in this beer for 2wks? Was thinking of racking to another carboy and adding the yeast starter-thoughts?

 

Warming it's a good plan. Don't get excited just yet because as it warms up CO2 will come out of solution and you'll get some extra bubbles. At 2 weeks you really don't have to worry yet. At this point you want all the yeast you can get, so racking it into a new carboy wouldn't help bring the gravity down. If you are going to throw a new starter in it, though, then racking it would be ok in my opinion.

Also, @step, I don't think raising the pH would be part of the prescription for this at all. Your beer will be hovering around the low 4s, and yeast can survive down to 2 (though not for a long time, certainly, since that's 100x as acidic). Ethanol and CO2 are the big stress sources here, and raising the pH significantly is just going to make it more tempting to OTHER bugs if anything.

 

RDWHAHB!!! You pitched plenty of Yeastie Beasties with that cake so let em do their thing. Warm it up, even up to 72ish and forget it for another couple weeks. And I would not be too concerned about autolysis. You had fresh, healthy yeast. There will be some dead cells but most of the autolysis talk in the literature was from older books that were written back when you got old crappy packages of dry yeast taped to the bottom of an old crappy can of extract. We now have access to ingredients at least as fresh as the big boys if not fresher. If you plan on extended aging (like 6 months or longer) then by all means rack to a secondary. Otherwise quit fiddling with it!

 

After letting the temp rise on its own to ~65/66 I saw co2 bubbles floating up and let it go on its own. I checked the gravity with the hydrometer today and it read 1.028 giving me around 11.5abv. Thank you to all for your advice and recommendations - I'm going to keg it up tonight because I don't think it's going to drop any lower in gravity (unless someone thinks it could). It just snowed today so some bock will be a great late winter warmer!