Gravity has been at 1.030 for three weeks

[SeaMonster]

Hey All,

I'm not sure what to do next with this beer. My gravity has been stuck at 1.030 for about three weeks now after one week for fairly vigorous fermentation. OG was 1.060. One week ago I repitched some Safale-04 (Whitbread Strain) and threw in some yeast nutrient to help restart fermentation. Gravity didn't move an inch. It's been fermenting between 64F-68F. Never above 70F.

As it is now, it's sitting at just under 4% ABV, which is fine with me, I just don't want any bottle rockets. I was making this for my non-beer drinking girlfriend so a bit of a session beer would be ok.

My main question is, should this be ok to bottle with a 1.030 FG? I'm assuming fermentation has stopped and the yeast are falling to the bottom. Here's the BeerToolsPro recipe.

Thanks so much!
------------------------

Crow's Nest Chocolate Hazlenut Porter
Sea Monster Brewing
12-B Robust Porter

Size: 5.0 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75%
Calories: 199.17 per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.060 (1.048 - 1.065)
Terminal Gravity: 1.015 (1.012 - 1.016)
Color: 26.3 (22.0 - 35.0)
Alcohol: 5.89% (4.8% - 6.0%)
Bitterness: 30.89 (25.0 - 50.0)

Ingredients:
2 lbs 2-Row Brewers Malt
1 lbs Crystal Malt 20°L
1 lbs Crystal Wheat Malt
1 lbs Chocolate Malt
3 lbs Dry Light Malt Extract
1 lbs Lactose
8 oz Cocoa Powder - added during boil, boiled 15 min
1.0 oz Perle (8.2%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
1.0 ea WYeast 1099 Whitbread Ale
4.0 oz Hazelnut (extract) - added just prior to bottling

Schedule:
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:33:00 Mash In - Liquor: 1.56 gal; Strike: 162.3 °F; Target: 150.0 °F
01:33:00 Saccharification Rest - Rest: 60.0 min; Final: 145.0 °F
01:43:00 Mash Out - Heat: 10.0 min; Target: 168.0 °F
02:28:00 Sparge - Sparge: 0.83 gal sparge @ 170.0 °F, 1.8 gal collected, 45.0 min; Total Runoff: 1.85 gal

Notes:
Even with repitching yeast (Safale 04 Whitbread) gravity is stuck at 1.029. I may just bottle this soon and call it Melissa's Session Beer.

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.0.29

 

[SeaMonster]

I should add...I didn't use a starter. Just smacked, brewed and three hours later pitched it.

 

[maltMonkey]

Your grain bill is roughly 45% unfermentables. Your final gravity should be high!

It's safe to bottle and it should be some.....interesting.....beer

 

[grasshopper1917]

To be honest it doesnt sound like it is done. aybe some of the guys hee will have some tips for you to get that fermentation going agan to help it finish out.

If the bottles dont explode maybe the beer would be ok for your GF to drink - but I would think it would be realllllly sweet - but she may like that.

 

[SeaMonster]

Your grain bill is roughly 45% unfermentables. Your final gravity should be high!

It's safe to bottle and it should be some.....interesting.....beer

45% unfermentables? How are you getting that? Did I miss something?

I mashed the Chocolate, Crystal, Crystal wheat and 2-row, not just steeped. 1# of lactose and 8oz of cocoa is about 15%. Isn't it?

 

[SeaMonster]

Wait...scratch that. I mashed the crystal, crystal wheat and 2-row.

That's still around 26% unfermentables. I'm confused.

 

[maltMonkey]

Nothing you mentioned needed mashed except for the 2-row, but that's not important.
Crystal, chocolate & crystal wheat are all mostly unfermentable:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section4/chapter20-1.html
http://homebrewandbeer.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=7139

I don't know how fermentable cocoa is but I didn't include that in the 45% figure.

 

[SeaMonster]

Ah. Ok! Thanks.

Well then...this is going to be interesting.

 

[maltMonkey]

Hope you have a sweet tooth! Who knows, maybe it will be awesome

 

[SeaMonster]

So I've got another question then...

Why does BeerToolsPro have an FG of 1.015 at 75% attenuation when I plug in the numbers to it? Doesn't a more sophisticated piece of brewing software take into account how much of a malt is fermentable?

It should...shouldn't it?

 

[maltMonkey]

So I've got another question then...

Why does BeerToolsPro have an FG of 1.015 at 75% attenuation when I plug in the numbers to it? Doesn't a more sophisticated piece of brewing software take into account how much of a malt is fermentable?

It should...shouldn't it?

I've made the same complaint about Beersmith. Not only about attenuation of specialty malts but the attenuation based on different mash temperatures.

All I can think of is that the software makers don't know attenuation formulas based on grist composition/mash temps, but it IS severely misleading.

Just as a general rule you usually don't want more than 10%-15% of your grain bill to be specialty malts.

 

[SeaMonster]

Good to know. Thanks very much for your help.

 

[BierMuncher]

Your beer is done. Right or wrong.

No bottle bomb worries.

 

[sAvAgE]

I am using this recipe calc.

It is great. Let us know how the beer turned out.


http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/recipe.html

this helped me out a lot for designing my all grain.


now only if those grains would come in

 

[david_42]

I see two major weaknesses in brewing software: they don't recognize IBU limits and they pay little attention to fermentability. If you plug in 75% attenuation, they just crank out a FG. You can check this by changing a pound of specialty grain for a pound of 2-row. The OG should go up and the FG down.