Great, I just transferred my Russian Imperial to secondary and my specific gravity is a whopping 1.056! Here is the story:

Brewed it on 3/13.
The mash was a little high, about 154-158.
10# Mild Malt
5# 2 Row
2# Oat flakes
2# Roast Barley
2# Chocolate Malt
3# Special B
1# Black Patent
Plenty of high alpha hops...
OG 1.118
2 packages of Safale s-04 yeast pitched without hydration.
Shook the heck out of the fermenter for aeration. (I do not have an O2 system, yet)

Airlock was bubbling away after 2 hours, and it spent about 24 hours vigorously fermenting at 70-72 degrees. Then I get the great idea to cool it down a little so it doesn't blow the airlock, so I put it directly on the concrete floor in my laundry room, with hopes to take it down to about 66. Well 8 hours later I check on it and it is 60 degrees, and no longer bubbling much. Shoot!! So I take it upstairs where it comes up to about 64. After 2 more days I am down to about 1 bubble per 45 seconds or more, and being concerned about the negative effects of my crash cooling, I pitch a packet of dry Red Star Champagne Yeast. That made no visible increase in bubbling activity ( after I pitched it, I looked at the package and saw it was 2 months expired). So on the 12th day, a week after visible fermenting ceased, I racked to secondary. I checked my specific gravity, and ouch, it's 1.056. So I throw in a packet of dry Safale US-05 in the secondary. Then I decide to hydrate another pack of US-05 and I throw that in there also. A day later, that yeast seems to be not doing anything, either.

So, one question: what do you suggest I do now? My plan is to let this new yeast try to work while it sits in secondary for 2 months.

154-158 sounds quite high...

Oh Fred, where are you?

edit: typing a reply while you were posting. . .

IMHO WAY too high a mash temp, & way too much dark grain to keep the FG down. If you were 100% basemalt I would guesstimate about a 1.043 FG. When you factor in that much dark malt I'd expect to see a FG of about 1.050.

What can you do.
1. The best way to restart a stuck fermentation (and I don't think this is one) is to get a growler full of active yeast (Variety doesn't mater much, look for any neutral yeast) from your friendly neighborhood brewpub and pitch that. Yes that is a lot of yeast but that is what you need.

2. Add sugar, you will not get the FG down much but you will increase the alcohol, you also need to add a growler of yeast since you racked it off the yeast cake. This will yield a high alcohol brew with a VERY heavy finish. Think Triplebock and Utopia.

3. Add beano, the enzymes will break down the long-chain non-fermentable sugars into fermentable sugars. Again you need to pitch some more yeast. Some brewers have reported success with this technique and if you have the capability of chilling your entire batch, and keeping it there until consumed this can work. If you do this consider kegging as the keg can relieve any excess Co2 pressure, no bottle bombs.

Fred

Yeah, I think that much Special B is gonna be an issue, too...do what Fred says.

joe-

what the heck is your rush?? why are you racking an 1.118 beer after just 12 days?

my thoughts on this are:

- try the yeast thing that Fred suggested. rouse the yeast often.
- time is on your side, so sit back and let nature take its' course. you won't hurt anything by doing so.

I'm not one to criticize but I think you made some mistakes here:

1. with a gravity that high I suspect that there's no way in hell you got enough O2 in there by just shaking the fermenter. next time do whatever you have to in order to get *plenty* of O2. if you don't have an O2 tank do the "pour back and forth" method between two buckets to aerate. worked well for me for years...
2. you threw the yeast into chaos by changing the temp around so much so fast. don't do that...
3. you compounded #2 by racking way too soon and assuming you left the yeast/trub behind, you ended up making what was left having to work 10 times as hard. be good to your yeast and they will be good to you... be gentle, slow down...
4. with a beer this big you need a BIG yeast pitch. two packages of dry yeast ain't gonna cut it. next time try pitching a yeast cake from a prior batch.
5. your recipe looks kinda whacky - is it a proven recipe or did you just make it up? a pound of black patent? yikes...

Dealing with the aftermath of this Trainwreck:

1.If all else fails, blend it with something like a porter or something.
2. if fermentation is stuck way high like it is now, make something like a porter or another RIS and blend in the stuck stuff into the new stuff and let the new batch chew up the remaining sugars. I've done this with mead with excellent results...
3. I defer to Fred's expertise, but the #2 and #3 options he suggests make you commit to a course of action that will permanently effect the outcome of your batch. Once you add something you can't take it out. I'd suggest give this brew a lot of time - you can add sugar/beano at a later opportunity when you are willing to take desperate measures and willing to risk writing off the beer.

Buck up bro - it ain't the end of the world to fubar a batch - we've all done it (and some, like Denny, more than others)...

For my 2nd ever batch, since my first batch turned out so well (in my opinion at least) I got cocky and made, yep, an extract RIS of my own design. The chaos of the brew session is the stuff horror movies are based on. Think "Godzilla Meets the 3 Stooges" for a mental image of what happened...

I basically did exactly what you described, threw yeast and yeast and yeast at it, moved it, changed temps, cursed it, worshiped it, finally gave up on it. For giggles I bottled it a couple months later. Tried a bottle about 2 months after that and it was completely wretched - worse even than something N8 would make....

I was ready to dump it when my LHBS guy told me to just give it time... ah yes - time.... time is your friend - remember that.... so 6 months later it was less bad... another 6 months and was only mildly crappy... another 6 months and it was drinkable... another 6 months and.....

This beer has taken 1st in four competitions....

--/\/\--

You really should hydrate the dry yeast first. You are robbing yourself if you don't. Especially with the big brews! I agree with MJ. Messing with it has compounded the many variables introduced into the process. Let it sit and then sit awhile longer. Then wait some more.

What speaks to me the most though is the mash temp. You gave a range of 154-158. If your thermometer is off on the high side, then you could have been up in the low 160's. You'll get more unfermentables the higher you go. If you were able to get it down in the first 15-20 minutes then you *might* have gotten some conversion in the range you want. As I understand it- convention is that the higher the temp, the quicker the conversion, and it could be done within 30 minutes. I've had this happen myself and gotten a stuck ferment. I left the bucket alone for a couple of months and it finally had dropped when I checked it. Not sure why but it did. I mashed that one @164F

I hope this makes you feel more confident about the batch...

Do you think adding a bunch of whiskey will cut the sweetness of it? This beer has a crazy sweetness. I'm thinking of adding a pint or two of whiskey. My final gravity is not dropping anymore.

I'd try the beano thing before that. You already have a pretty high alcohol beer even with the low attenuation. I think you would end up with something like Southern Comfort. Blechhh.

You could try the beano. Be prepared for it to over-attenuate. Then you could add lactose to beef the body back up some after the beano has had its way.

Or you could let it sit for a couple of months and see...

There is always another option: toss it out and start over. Did he just say that? Yes, I did. Probably anything you do will result in something you are not happy with.

No harm in pitching out some beer...

I think Matt is right on top of this one. Don't dump it unless it tastes infected, either give it time or bled it with different, dryer beer. Ive had slow fermentations that took months to finish out, and they still tasted great in the end.

Beano... haven't tried it yet, but I would use that before dumping, fur sure.

Due to several slow fermentations Ive taken to setting up a small electric heater in my fermentation area and I can gernerally keep beers at 66-ish during the colder months, where w/o the heater beers sitting on my basement floor tend to be in the mid to upper 50s

I don't have much expereince with brews above 1.100, but I agree with hydrating the dried yeast first with big brews. Also probably needed a lot more O2.

I would brew up a batch of strictly base malt mashed low 147-149F for a good 2 hours. Maybe even add some sugar. Mix with your batch and ferment. Now you have twice as much of a good batch. Or bottel and wait a year. But bottle in some strong bottles cause if it keeps fermenting you risk bottle bombs. Chock it up to a learning experience