brewinhard wrote:IF you have only let the beer ferment for one week, then you should continue to let it ferment for at least another week. check your gravity at the end of two weeks just to see where you are before making any decisions. If your yeast is still in suspension, there is a good chance it is still slowly fermenting away at the remaining sugars to reach your FG.
this of course depends on proper aeration levels, a low mash temp, use of any simple sugars, and fermentation temperatures (if possible, rouse your yeast and let your temps come up a bit to help the yeast finish out).
Yep. I second that. You might be done depending on your mash temp and fermentation temp because you're in the neighborhood of 70% attenuation. Let it warm up for a week, and it could come down a few points, but I wouldn't expect too much. Also someone else pointed out that you could throw in some dry yeast and that might bring it down a little too. Those 1.085 beers are tricky, and a FG of 1.030 is not completely unheard of. They require more yeast and oxygen than normal. Some pro brewers even aerate those beers twice; once at the beginning of fermentation and once after about 12 hours. If you throw in enough yeast where you don't require any more growth because your wort is already completely saturated, that's another option too. Letting those beers age is very important. I advise you to brew another beer right away so you can let go of that one. It's sort of like breaking up, but in this case you get her back in about 6 months.