Need Advice for a stuck fermentation in a high gravity brew

[cmpterman2]

I decided to give a big Belgian a try after doing 10 or so recipes this year. I've done some smaller belgians with good success, but this is my highest gravity brew so far.

The trouble that I've run into is that my fermentation seems to be stuck and I just can't get the FG to drop any further. When I taste the beer it still tastes sweet.

OG = 1.105
Current Gravity = 1.034 (at 66 Deg F)
Target FG = 1.026

It was in the primary for 1.5 months. I racked to secondary and added some munton's gold yeast to see if it would help but it didn't seem to drop the gravity much (maybe .002 after more than 3 weeks).

Some thoughts - I've got another brew that is just finishing in primary - I could take the yeast / trub and dump it into the secondary on this brew to see if it kick starts it (main down side is that the beer that is finishing was a little high for OG at 1.074). Another thought is to buy another vial of fresh yeast and either just pitch it, or make a starter and pitch that to see if it will drop the gravity any further.

The recipe I used was an extract based recipe (actually AHS Dutch Castle Magic). Here are the fermentables:
10 lb Extra Pale Extract
1 lb Extra Light DME
1 can lyle's golden syrup
2 lb Clear Candi Sugar

I used two vials of white labs Belgian Abbey Ale 530 that were relatively fresh (other than some high temperatures during shipping).

Any help / advice is appreciated.

 

[Nateo]

Right now you're at 67% attenuation. That's not terrible for normal beers. It might just be "done" and not stuck. Belgian beers need 80%+ attenuation, which I suspect would be really hard to get using extract. I've never tried to make an extract beer that strong. When I do all grain beers I use a handful of tricks to make the wort extra fermentable, steps that weren't taken when your extract was made.

Were you doing a 5 gallon batch? According to mrmalty, you'd need to make at least a 3 liter starter when using 2 vials. You probably underpitched, which could have stressed the yeast and made them flocculate too early.

Have you tried rousing the yeast?

 

[COLObrewer]

What temperature is it? You might try some amylase enzyme, swirling, if you haven't already and raising the temp.

On your next big beer make certain you make a starter that is comparable for the beer. I don't believe two vials was nearly enough for 1.105 OG.