BYO Stone IPA gone wrong

[beergutbrew]

I planned on pulling off my first 10 gallon all grain yesterday, but ran into another first.... a stuck sparge. I crushed the grains to fine. I tried everything to save it but couldn't get more than 7 gallons out, so I changed gears and decided to just go for a 6 gallon batch. The SG was 1.080, the OG ended up at 1.086. Here is the recipe with the hops scaled down for a 6 gallon batch.

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
23.18 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 93.54 %
1.60 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L (20.0 SRM) Grain 6.46 %
0.70 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (90 min) Hops 13.0 IBU
0.70 oz Magnum [14.00 %] (90 min) Hops 19.3 IBU
0.40 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (Dry Hop 5 days) Hops -
1.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (Dry Hop 5 days) Hops -
2.00 oz Centennial [10.00 %] (15 min) Hops 20.3 IBU
1.00 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs English Ale (White Labs #WLP002) [Starter Yeast-Ale

Up to this point I have only brewed beer in the range of 1.060- 1.050. Is there anything I can do to ensure this potentially high gravity beer will taste good? Add more hops in secondary. Add less hops in secondary. Ferment longer than normal.
Any help will be appreciated. I tried to turn a snafu into something positive and hope it turns out.

 

[david_42]

At that gravity, it's more like Rock of Gibraltar! It looks like ~53 IBU, which is really low for the ABV. You might consider boiling some more bittering hops in two gallons of water and splitting the batch in the secondary. Two gallons would bring the IBUs up to 65 and drop the effective SG gravity to 1.065.

Or get some bittering concentrate to bump the IBUs. Your OG is in range for a DIPA, just needs more IBUs.

 

[chefchris]

Had a very similiar thing happen while brewing this beer. I was getting really good efficiency at the time and forgot to scale down the recipe from BYO and some other **** happened. OG was 1.091. Entered it into the Big & Huge competition in WI and took 2nd place out of 52 beers. The beer was fantastic. I just brewed it again but did it right this time.

 

[beergutbrew]

At that gravity, it's more like Rock of Gibraltar! It looks like ~53 IBU, which is really low for the ABV. You might consider boiling some more bittering hops in two gallons of water and splitting the batch in the secondary. Two gallons would bring the IBUs up to 65 and drop the effective SG gravity to 1.065.

Or get some bittering concentrate to bump the IBUs. Your OG is in range for a DIPA, just needs more IBUs.

Thanks, I'll give that a try. At first I was bummed, spent well over an hour trying to get it to work, then it dawned on me, take a reading....wow immediately switched back into happy brew mode.

 

[beergutbrew]

Well it has been three weeks in the primary and I transfered to secondary for dry hopping.
The gravity is at 1.020 and it still has a sweet taste to it.....

Any ideas??

Should I just let it sit for awhile more, or add some more yeast to kick it back up. (Gut feeling is I should have let it sit in the primary a couple of more weeks).

 

[chefchris]

Well it has been three weeks in the primary and I transfered to secondary for dry hopping.
The gravity is at 1.020 and it still has a sweet taste to it.....

Any ideas??

Should I just let it sit for awhile more, or add some more yeast to kick it back up. (Gut feeling is I should have let it sit in the primary a couple of more weeks).

try some amylase enzyme. most shops carry it. I use to help knock my gravity down a couple more points. It's never gone down over 5 points for me, so don't let people tell you "it'll dry it out completely". that's beano.

 

[samc]

Although I rarely use them anymore, rice hulls are cheap to keep around and you might have been able to save the sparge by adding them after you got stuck. Never tried it but it's a thought.

I think I would use David's approach and make a bittering tea of some hops and add it.

 

[beergutbrew]

I decided to bump up the IBU's through a hop tea/hop concentrate mixture.
I read about creating you own hop extract through the process of seperating the lupulin from the cone. This process took forever but it worked. I seperated about 1/4 cup of lupulin, boiled 1/2 gallon of water, 1/4 cup of DME and some leftover hops for 60 minutes and cooled. Added the mixture to the fermenter. A week later kegged (FG was at 1.015).
As of last night...WOW It was as if I had a pinch of hops in my mouth, very hoppy. I really believe the hop extract/hop tea helped it out.
So what started as a nightmare turned out pretty well.