I brewed this bad boy about a month ago (7th batch ever
). Tonight was supposed to be bottling night but the final gravity is quite high, about 1.046. Granted, OG was very high (1.117) so maybe it's not going to go down any further... Also worrisome is that the 8th day gravity was about 1.048 so basically nothing has happened in 3 or so weeks.
I don't have much room in my small apartment (nor access to glass carboys) so I only do primary fermentation in an 8 gallon bucket and then bottle. For fermentation I used two packs of S04 and boy did they go to town... I had to put the fermenting bucket in the bathtub for the first 24 hours with the lid partially open to avoid an explosion in the storage room (and this was with a blowoff tube!)
On the bright side, the sample from the bucket tastes awesome! Only issue I might have is that it's a bit sweet (not surprising given the gravity) but perhaps that would take care of itself over a few months in bottles.
What do you fellow brewers think, should I just bottle and hope for the best or maybe add some yeast, or let it sit in the primary bucket for a few more weeks? Is there a chance that if I bottled without additional yeast, the beer would be unable to carbonate because I've somehow exhausted all the yeast from those two S04 packs?
Thanks for any input!