High finished gravity

What went wrong? Was this supposed to happen? Should I throw it out? What do I do now?

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HardcoreLegend
Pale Ale
Pale Ale
Posts: 68
Joined: Sat Mar 02, 2002 11:49 am
Location: Roscoe, IL, US

High finished gravity

Post by HardcoreLegend »

I recently brewed a Porter that is currently in the secondary. I racked from the primary before achieving final gravity and now it won't budge. It was projected to finish at 1.010ish but it is at 1.019. What should I do about this? Should I get some more yeast and throw it on? Or should I just bottle it? I was worried that bottling it might cause explosions! Please help me!
Gravity Thrills
Strong Ale
Strong Ale
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Joined: Thu Oct 25, 2001 10:12 pm

couple of options

Post by Gravity Thrills »

For whatever reason, everyone has a batch like this that won't ferment out, and it's always challenge to decide what to do about it. I think in most cases, it's because of lack of aeration at the outset but you obviously can't add oxygen now (I haven't had a sluggish or stuck fermentation since going to the oxygen bottle/airstone strategy, but that's more costly than many want to pursue).

Here are some options you might consider, and I'm sure other posters will add a few more

Of course, try to rouse your yeast and move the carboy to a slightly warmer location to see if that gets things going.

Pitch some more yeast. Some people keep a packet of dried yeast on hand for this reason, and others say go with champagne yeast at this stage. Hopefully, responses to follow will give some opinions.

You could just go ahead and bottle, cutting back on the priming sugar a bit
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