Add More Yeast?

[mlager]

Brewed a 5 gallon Imperial IPA 13 days ago with a starting gravity of 1.100. I fear I have under pitched. I used 2 vials of WLP001 in a 2 L starter. I just checked the gravity and am only at 1.040, I would have expected more progress after 13 days of fermentation at 71 F. It tastes pretty good, but sweeter than I'd like. So I'm wondering what I should do, allow it to sit in primary for longer and see if it comes down a bit? Shake up the carboy to try to get yeast into suspension? Add more yeast? I'll be dry hopping for a couple weeks once I think it is ready. If I should add more yeast, how much? Should I throw in a 1/3 vial of WLP001? I was experimenting with this batch and used a hefty load of crystal malts (4.5 pounds / 18%) and I've read a bit about the fermentability of sugars from this specialty grain, so maybe 1.040 is as good as I'm gonna get, in which case it's off to dry hopping.

Thanks in advance for any advice!

 

[TrainSafe]

Can you post a recipe so one of us can plug it into some software and calculate a FG?

I suspect that you just need to wait it out.

 

[phoenixs4r]

You pitched both vials into the starter? Or made 2, 2L starters?

 

[mlager]

I pitched two vials into one 2L starter. I then pitched the entire starter into the wort. The grain bill is as follows:

90 minute boil starting with 8 gallons in the boil kettle, left about 2.5 gallons in the kettle that was mostly absorbed by hops used during the boil...

16 lb 2 Row
4.5 lb Crystal 40
.75 lb carapils
.25 lb biscuit

Added 3 pounds of DME at beginning of boil.

I used beer smith which calculated this at 1.100 at 61 % total efficiency. I hit the target starting gravity.

 

[phoenixs4r]

I'm still new to designing recipes but that seems like a LOT of crystal 40, no?

How old was the yeast? Stir plate used?

 

[mlager]

Yeah it is a ton of Crystal, I intentionally did that as I wanted a dramatic presence of its characters, sort of working on refining this recipe of the course of a few brews.

Yeast vials were expiring in January, so must be fairly fresh. One thing I noticed is both vials had a lot of pressure build up when opened, was sort of a pain when opening, but I'm not used to seeing this with the WLP001 strain, at least not to the extent that i saw with these, maybe that pressure caused some strain on the yeast, or indicates another issue.

 

[mlager]

Sorry... No stir plate, just swirling as often as possible.

 

[phoenixs4r]

Sorry... No stir plate, just swirling as often as possible.

Hmmm. Should have been enough with a stir plate, not sure about shaking. I don't think yeast is your issue tho.

 

[mlager]

My gut tells me to let this go for a few days then throw the hops in for a couple weeks. I was going to rack to secondary but I'm thinking that keeping this beer on the yeast for the dry hopping period will do it good.

 

[TyTanium]

What's your fermentation temp?

 

[mlager]

71 f

 

[phoenixs4r]

Is that fermentation temp or ambient?

 

[mlager]

Fermentation temp. Ferments in a temperature controlled fridge using a Johnson controller with probe sitting in middle of beer using a thermowell.

 

[phoenixs4r]

Weird. I've read that specialty malts contain more unfermentable sugars, but it was from a poster on here RI have no validity of it. 1.040 seems really high even if that was the case.... sorry dude I dunno.

 

[mlager]

Probably just needs more time, thanks for chiming in!