Well I was all ready to bottle my Merchantman Stout (Foreign style dry stout) out of the secondary and I decided to take one more reading. It had dropped from 1.068 to 1.030 over the course of the primary fermentation, then slowly moved to 1.025 over 2 weeks of secondary. Its been another week and I figured the SG would have dropped some more. It hasn't - in fact it read 1.028 at 66F, but its pretty fizzy so I could be getting some buoyancy from carbonation on the hydrometer. I was expecting attenuation to 1.015 - 1.020 with WLP004.
I figure at this point rousing the yeast and giving it some more time is the thing to do. I tasted my hydro sample, and it does taste a bit sweet, but overall its really great - full bodied and fragrant with all kinds of chocolately flavor overtones. Nice and smooth, though any hop aroma from the Northern Brewers I used seems to be buried in the malt. I'd really hate to turn it all into bottle bombs though.
Its an extract brew, using Cooper's amber I think. Could an extract stout hang at 1025 like this? Also, I've never had to rouse a brew before. I took the entire secondary and shook until the lees were back in suspension and a thick head had developed. Should I shoot some 02 in there? There was about 1/4" of yeast sedimented into the lees; will repitching be necessary? Any commentary is welcome.
