Help me troubleshoot this porter?

[sheeshomatic]

I'm just having an attenuation issue.

The specifics 5 gallon batch

Robust Porter -
9lbs 8oz pale malt
2lbs munich
1lb brown
1lb crystal 120
9.5oz chocolate
8oz crystal light 45
4oz molasses
.75 oz magnum@60
.5 oz EKG@15

California Ale Yeast

OG- 1.080
estimated FG of 1.018
Mash was 60 minutes at 155.

Actual gravity as of now is 1.026. It will have been in primary for 3 weeks tomorrow. Fermentation temp was 66. I brought it up closer to 70 this past week, since a gravity check after 2 weeks had it at 1.026. It's not budged and that's with me rousing it a couple few times a day.

I pitched from a starter made with harvested yeast brewed in October.

The ONLY thing I'm questioning about process is my water. I got a water report from my town and I also used some pond strips to check my water for various items. Both the strips and the report say that overall my water is very soft. I added a half tsp of gypsum to my strike water - none to my sparge. I can't imagine it would have that much, if ANY effect on attenuation, but it's the only variable I have different from any other brew.

The beer tastes quite good actually - but definitely too sweet. I have some amylase, but I really don't want to destroy the beer. I think it will be decent enough carbed, but perhaps a tiny bit cloying. Just looking for thoughts or suggestions.

 

[BigEd]

You need to show us the recipe/grain bill.

 

[sheeshomatic]

Whoops - meant to, neglected to go back and fill it in.

 

[daksin]

Recipe would help, but your mash temp is fairly high and that's a decently big beer. 26 points will certainly be "robust," it may be done if there's a lot of unfermentables in the grain bill. I would lean towards saying it's done if you've warmed it up and roused it, which it sounds like you have.

One last thing to try would be to boil ~10g of baker's yeast with a few ounces of table sugar and add that to your beer. The theory goes that the remaining hungry yeast will get started on the simple sugars and then go back to work on what's left of your beer. That helped me drop a BSD down from 1.030 to 1.024, but that was in combination with warming and rousing, so I obviously can't attribute it to only the sugar and nutrient. It was one piece of advice I got, though, so I figured I'd pass it on.

 

[sheeshomatic]

Recipe would help, but your mash temp is fairly high and that's a decently big beer. 26 points will certainly be "robust," it may be done if there's a lot of unfermentables in the grain bill. I would lean towards saying it's done if you've warmed it up and roused it, which it sounds like you have.

One last thing to try would be to boil ~10g of baker's yeast with a few ounces of table sugar and add that to your beer. The theory goes that the remaining hungry yeast will get started on the simple sugars and then go back to work on what's left of your beer. That helped me drop a BSD down from 1.030 to 1.024, but that was in combination with warming and rousing, so I obviously can't attribute it to only the sugar and nutrient. It was one piece of advice I got, though, so I figured I'd pass it on.

Thanks Daskin- I have the recipe in the original post now.