Bulldog Easter Brew Chocolate Stout - stuck fermentation?

[Martin]

Hi guys

need some of your priceless advice again...I'm on Bulldog's Easter Brew ( chocolate stout ) at the moment. After a weeek in the FV, the fermetation seems to be stuck for 3 continuous days at 1017. OG = 1052. Temperature was constant 18-19c. Should I just wait or push the temperature little higher to 20-21c ?  Or is it ok to bottle in a few days at 1017, maybe with a little less priming sugar?

[molc]

Wonder what sort of unfermenables are in there as well. Might just be there's lactose etc that doesn't convert keeping the fg higher than expected...
Regardless, I'd say leave it for another week and then bottle as the yeast still has some cleaning up to do even if the f2f doesn't drop anymore.

[Martin]

As per Bulldog's brewing instruction, the FG should read between 1008 - 1014 for darker and high alcohol-type beers and reach 6% ABV for the Easter Brew Stout.

http://www.bulldogbrews.co.uk/assets/docs/23090-bulldog-brews-instruction.pdf

I'm now by around 4,6% but that doesn't concern me much, I'm just worried about the stuck fermentation. Hopefully the yeasties just slowed down a bit... Anyhow, I will wait for another week and bottle then even if FG doesn't change. Not really much else I could do now anyway, right?

[cython]

How did you get on with this in the end?  I have the same kit in a fermenter for the last 3 weeks, and it seemed to get stuck around 1020 for the last week, but i moved it downstairs today having resigned myself to bottling high and it seems to have started glugging away again, having been very static from an airlock perspective before.  Gonna keep an eye on it for 24-48 hours in any case.

[Martin]

I just gave it a gentle stir to reintroduce the yeast and ended up at 1016 after 3 weeks in the FV. No idea what I'm doing wrong but the next Bulldog Kit ( Raja's Reward IPA ) that I have in the fermenter right now for over a week at constant 20c ( pitched at 22c ) had a only a very small krausen, maybe 1cm and fermented down from 1044 to only 1015 by now and it seems like the fermentation is stuck again...  Well, it's only my fourth kit but I'm going back to the more forgiving and much cheaper Coopers kits, that's for sure