first big beer: is FG of only 1.030 resonable?

[domdom]

brewed by first (intentionally) big beer a few weeks ago. it is going to be a mocha stout with coffee and chocolate added. my starting gravity was 1.100 and after about 3 weeks it's settled at 1.030, which is a little higher than what a i wanted (was aiming for 1.025-ish) but still not too bad. i was wondering if this was a reasonable final gravity for such a big beer or if there was anything i could do better. i remember hearing denny and drew talk on their podcast about the misconception that big beers should have comparable FGs of beers w/ lower OGs (i.g. a beers with 1.090 and 1.065 OG would both end up with an FG of around 1.012). thinking the lactose and LME might have attributed to the higher FG. see recipe info below. either way, it's a tasty, booze brew so could be worse! planning to make a barley wine soon so might need the info. thanks in advance.

MALT
-15 lb pale 2 row
-1 lb flaked oats
-0.75 lb chocolate wheat
-0.5 lb C-120
-3 oz roasted barley
-3 lb liquid malt extract, added at last 15 min
-0.5 lb lactose, added at last 15 min

YEAST
-WL-007 dry english ale w/ 1200ml starter
-Safale 05, re-hydrated w/ 1oz DME

 

[ancientmariner52]

Someone can slap me if this is wrong, but I would expect the ratio between fermentables and unfermentables would be pretty constant for a given recipe. So, a bigger beer would have a higher concentration of unfermentables, thus a higher FG. Does that make sense?

 

[AZCoolerBrewer]

I made a coffee stout that ended with a higher than I expected FG. I thought that it was likely due to high mash PH from the darker grains. My recipe used a lot of brown malt also which I’m told these days has little to no diastatic power. It wasn’t overly sweet and in fact was quite delicious. For your big beer though, I might give it another week or so. @ancientmariner52 I think that your assumption is rational. I’d be interested in hearing why it should be otherwise. I could see where if you always made super dry beer, that the ratio and thus the spread would be much smaller, but there is also a place for big beers that finish high. Otherwise, why would the BJCP create a standard for barleywine up to FG 1.030?

 

[flars]

What was your mash temperature and the fermentation temperature?

 

[domdom]

What was your mash temperature and the fermentation temperature?

mash temp was 154 for 60 min. started fermentation at 65 and ramped up to 72. figured i could mash a little lower but didn't want to overshoot and lose too much body in the beer.

 

[Smellyglove]

I'd say your spot on. Don't think any more about it, just let it age well.