Just covering my bases in case any of you saw this over at the rec.crafts.brewing group -- don't skin me.
Hello folks, I couldn't find an answer after searching for a while so I thought I'd just post directly to the group. Hopefully one of you pros can help.
I just racked my first batch of beer after six days in the primary fermenter (the airlock had slowed down to about a bubble every 30 secs or so) and was still coming up with a specific gravity of 1.024 at 73 degrees. Now, I know this is way too high to prime and bottle (which was my original plan) but I'm concerned that the brew won't be safe to bottle in the next 2-3 days. The only reason I say this is because the original specific gravity and temp at the time I pitched my yeast (White Labs English ale) was 1.122 and 72 degrees. I know that's wickedly high but I used 6.5 lbs of malt (half syrup and half DME -- it's what I had on hand).
Any thoughts on what's going on here and why the specific gravity readings are so high? Do you think there's a chance that I will have to add more yeast to jump start the fermentation again?