Need advice. Coffee porter Stuck at 1.030

[TheBrewLebowski]

Background:
On 1/30/12 I brewed a coffee porter (extract recipe 5 gallon batch). The kits stated OG was 1.052 with a FG of 1.015. This gave an estimated ABV of 4.8%. I wanted something closer to 7%, so on the advice of the LHB store guy, I picked up 3 lbs of additional DME. On brew day, I decided to throw in about 3/4 lb of leftover DME that I had sitting around the beer cabinet before it went bad. All of the additions brought me up to an OG of 1.088. Oops! As per the instructions, I added 1/4 lb of ground fresh coffee beans toward the end of the active fermentation.

Now, here are some potential problems.
1) I neglected to make a starter. Wasn't thinking it would be this big a beer.
2) The yeast packet (wyeast 1099XL whitbread ale yeast) had been in my fridge for a month and a half. Not sure how old it was when I got it. The packet never swelled when I activated it. Having read the directions, I knew this wasn't really necessary, so I pitched it when the wort had cooled to 70 deg.
3) Fermentation was probably at the lower end of the temp range at a consistent 64 deg room temp.
4) It took two days to see any significant activity in the airlock. I know that is a bad indication of things, but every other beer I have made (10 previous brews) started showing activity within a few hours.

So after 3 weeks, I checked the gravity. Came up with 1.036. Roused the yeast a bit, then left it go another week. Gravity reading was unchanged. I decided to pitch a packet of champagne yeast to try to bring the grav down. After about two weeks, it has come down to 1.030 and got stuck there. The beer tastes and smells fine, other than being very sweet.

My question is, should I pitch more champagne yeast, or is there another trick I'm not aware of? Also, when I altered the OG as much as I did, can I expect a higher final gravity as well, or should it still attenuate down close to the recipes stated FG? This will be bottled, and I don't want any bottle bombs. Thanks for the advice!

 

[deepcdan99]

That much higher of an OG will result in a highr FG, but 30 still seems a bit high to me. should be dropping to about 1025 ish with 75% attentuation. So its really not that far off. Your looking at an ABV of around 7-8% as is.

 

[AmandaK]

After champagne yeast and it didn't really work... maybe Beano?

 

[Calder]

Whitbread yeast will attenuate to about 70%. That should have gotten you close to 1.027. You are pretty close.

It was a mistake using the champagne yeast. Champagne yeast works well on simple sugars, but not complex sugars, so it would not take it down too far. The real problem with champagne yeast is that it is a killer strain, and adding any new ale yeast will have a problem taking hold with the champagne yeast in there.

You could add some Brett. Probably will turn out good, but it would require an investment of 9 to 12 months. Brett is a different strain from the regular sacc yeast and is unaffected by wine yeast.

 

[zacster]

I wouldn't bottle this high. Try another packet of ale yeast anyway to see if it does anything. It won't hurt, even if champagne yeast kills it. 9 to 12 months is too long a time to keep it if you ask me, especially if you have limited equipment.

There is another alternative: Dump it and start again. I know that's not the usual advice, but why waste time saving a bad brew. My time is way more valuable to me than that.

 

[michael.berta]

I'd personally bottle it. I think too often people get hung up on numbers and don't think about the flavor. The OP says it smells and tastes fine. Unless there is a wild yeast or bacterial contamination I doubt there will be bottle bombs.