FG on a stout ?????

[Bombo80]

I designed my own recipe for a stout. The grain bill and brew steps are as follows :

Duke's American Stout

10# 6 row malt
1# 120*L caramel malt
1# flaked barley
1/2# chocolate malt
1/2# black patent malt
1/2# roasted barley
calcium chloride in mash water
Burton water salts in sparge water

4.5 gal mash-in water @ 135*
mash temp 126* - protein rest 30 minutes
raised mash to 155* - 2 hour mash
mash-out to 168*
fly sparge with treated water
regulated runoff at 1 qt. per minute, and recirculated wort until clear.
I collected way too much wort. It took 2 hours to boil down to 5 gal level.
1oz. No. Brewer hops @ 120 minutes
1oz. Williamette hops @ 30 minutes
1oz, Williamette hops @ 5 minutes
Wyeast 1056 Am. Ale yeast propagation pack

OG 1.063
3 weeks in primary
4 weeks in secondary (as of yesterday 03-03-08)
Current gravity is ~1.018, which has come down about .004 since transferring to secondary (4 weeks)

The brew looks, and tastes pretty good. A bit hop heavy, in the bitterness end, but I hope it will mellow a little as it bottle conditions.

My question is, is this a low enough final gravity to bottle ??

I moved the secondary from a 55* - 60* room, to a 70* room and wrapped a blanket around it, for a week to help finish it off. I even agitated it a bit too.
I think I will bottle this one tomorrow. I guess I just need to be reassured it will be OK. Kind of strange, but I think I convinced myself that it will be OK.

Thanks guys.

 

[Bad Shark Brew]

Should be good. If I remember correctly to determine FG you drop the one from the reading and multiply by 35% (ie: 0.063 x 0.35). In this case it says your target FG is 1.022, so I think you should be okay. BTW, your ABV is gonna be like 6%, so I wouldn't go on a bender with this stuff

 

[Bombo80]

Beersmith says about 5.7% ABV. I haven't heard of the "multiply by 35% thing before.

Thanks

 

[Bad Shark Brew]

I haven't heard of the "multiply by 35% thing before.

I actually first read about it in "Homebrewing for Dummies" which SWMBO bought for my birthday when I first started brewing. It also has calculations for figuring out ABV and all that. I use promash now, so it's mostly useless knowledge that gets shaken loose once in a while.

 

[TexLaw]

Multiplying by 0.35 is fine if you only expect 65% apparent attenuation, but I would expect closer to 75% with 1056 yeast. With 75% apparent attentuation, you get a FG of about 1.016. Considering that you have a fair amount of unfermentables in there, a yeast that reliably gets to terminal gravity without sticking, and that you've been in the secondary for four weeks, I say you're good to go.

Brewing with 6-row malt, eh? Man, I haven't seen someone do that in a while.


TL

 

[Bombo80]

I got a good deal on a few hundred pounds of it. That's why I am trying to use it up. I don't want it to go bad.

 

[conpewter]

Looks like it would be mighty tasty. I agree that it's ready to bottle.