Imperial Stout question

[Ronthered]

This is the big stout I brewed today.

OG: 1.121
FG: 1.030
Alcohol: 11.7% v/v
Bitterness: 66 IBU
Size: 5.25 gallons
Boil: 120 minutes SG 1.074 8.5 gallons
Mash: 79% efficiency mashed for 60 min +
Safale-04 dry english ale yeast huge starter

Golden Promise 15 lbs
Crystal 60 3 lbs
Choco Malt 1 lbs
Roasted malt 1 lbs
Oat malt 2 lbs
Flaked oats 5 oz (ran out, was going to do 1 pound)

Magnum 1 oz 60 min
Chinook 1 oz 20 min
Chinook 1 oz 15 min

So can I be admitted to the big beer club please?

[Ronthered]

Well right now I'm sitting at about a 1.049 to 1.050 for gravity. I want to dose it with some high gravity yeast to try and get that down to about an .030, should I oxygenate the wort again? or just pitch the high gravity starter?

[ohiobrewtus]

I've read posts from people that have had success either way. If it were me, I'd want to oxygenate it.

[Evan!]

1.121 -> 1.030 looks like 12.25% to me. Regardless, I believe you may have maxed out the alcohol tolerance for the S04. I couldn't find any numbers online, but it doesn't sound like it has an extraordinarily high threshold. The only thing I can recommend at this point is to brew a "smallish" beer, like ~1.040 OG, pitch a starter slurry of the Super High Gravity or Trappist High Gravity strain onto that, let it ferment out, then rack the small beer off of it and rack the Impy Stout onto that cake. I would bet that even a big starter of the high gravity strains would not be enough to get this one started back up. And yeah, I oxygenate it a little, not a lot. You only have ~20 gravity points to go, so you don't want any leftover oxygen in there. I'm skeptical that you'll be able to get this that low, but this is only from my own experience with the Meph clone, where I got it down to 1.043 even with the super high grav strain and "dosing" during fermentation to keep my peak gravity relatively restrained. In any case, I wish you luck, but I would put good money on you not getting below 1.040...and your best bet at this point to get things restarted is to do the "small batch".

[MrMarbleHead]

I guess I just am in the camp of not wanting to oxygenate right now for fear of oxidation to the final product. I would go with the small beer/big cake method hear. If you were going to oxygenate again it should have been after the first day or two.

Going with the method of making another beer and racking on top of the yeast cake the worst thing that could happen is that it doesn't ferment out below 1.040 and you have 5 more gallons of a different beer as well. What do you have going in the primaries right now that you could possibly use?