Advice needed on RIS..just racked

[EkieEgan]

I am looking for some thoughts on my RIS. I just racked it and expected a gravity to be lower than it is. I brewed in 12/29/16. Starting gravity was 1.121 and after fermentation, reads 1.044. I used 2 freshly hydrated packs of US-05..aerated well over several hours until fermentation took off and it fermented very vigorously for a couple weeks and then continued to slowly ferment for another 2+ weeks at 68F. I honestly expected to be in the 1.030 range. Perhaps it really is done? It tastes good and I will be adding charred white oak sticks that I have had soaking in quality bourbon. Perhaps some cacoa nibs and fresh vanilla bean. Haven't made my mind up yet ABV reads 10.11% as is.

Heres the recipe in case the grain bill is in question.

13 lbs Canadian pale malt
3.25 lbs Muncih
1 lb brown malt
1 lb flaked oats
1 lb crystal 60
.5 lb crystal 120
1.5 lbs chocolate malt
1.25 lbs raosted barley

Any ideas? Thoughts? Should I add more fresh yeast?? Thanks in advance.

 

[bolus14]

What was your mash temp? If you mashed high that would contribute to getting a high FG.

Right now you're looking at about 64% apparent attenuation. In a beer this big that might be all you get, but I would try raising the temps, at this point I wouldn't be afraid if getting into the mid 70's and give the fermenter a gentle swirl.

 

[EkieEgan]

I mashed at 154. I should have mashed a lot lower. A beer this big would have had lots of body anyway..brain fart. Well...it's already been racked. My only option would be to add some fresh yeast, which I certainly can do. Although I brew frugally, with a beer like this, I don't worry about the expense as much as it is still way cheaper than buying a couple of cases of bourbon stout. I do have an area in my pantry that is at 72F, but that's about it. Hmmm...

 

[bolus14]

I wouldn't pitch more, I would try raising the temp for a week or so, check the gravity and if it hasn't dropped at all I would say it's done and bottle.or keg it

 

[EkieEgan]

Sounds good. It's really not as thick as I would expect. It's chunky, but I think will be OK for the Bourbon. Thanks for your help. Next time I will mash lower!

 

[Easycreeper]

Ran into the same problem as you not too long ago and I completely understand about not minding a little extra expense if you can get it to the finish line.

One of the suggestions that came up was to make a smaller beer using the same yeast (in my case WLP099 super high gravity) and rack the beer onto the resulting yeast cake.

Mine got stuck at 1.048 from 1.166 and was just way too sweet. So far, racking onto the cake has been working. Saw a 4 point drop in the first week and it's still continuing to ferment slowly over a month later. Plan to check it again in a few weeks to see just how far it has come.

This was after pitching fresh yeast twice, raising the term temp, adding yeast energizer, and rousing the yeast. None of which worked.

Good luck!

 

[EkieEgan]

I've done the yeast cake on Belgians before so I'm familiar..Boy I was confident that 2 packs of US-05 would have done it. On the good side is the beer really is OK. It's not too sweet. I'm thinking this one maybe did but terminal gravity or very close because of the amount of non fermentable grains and the 154 mash temp. I don't think fresh yeast will do much at this point and after thinking about it all night, I've decided to just go with it..Try again and do what you are suggesting next time. At least it's big enough to stand up to some bourbon. It's still 10% so I'm not complaining. Thanks for the input. Appreciate it!