Saving an under-attenuated Dubbel?

[Dougal]

Hey all,

I made a dubbel/Scotch ale that was a bit of a crack at McChouffe recently. The brewday was a bit of a nightmare in that my attempts at step mashing were thwarted by a dodgy thermometer, so the main saccharification rest was at about 73C.

Needless to say, despite my best efforts and a big pitch of 3522, it hasn't attenuated well. From 1.079 to 1.021 in one week, and after another two weeks of 25C temps it's made it to 1.020.

My thinking is that I have two options.

1. Grow up a big starter of 3711 French Saison (it seems to eat everything, but I'm not sure how it copes with fermenting beer that already has alcohol present).

2. Pitch some Brett bruxellensis that I have on hand.

The base recipe is really nice- the flavour is definitely in the ballpark for McChouffe, though it's obviously not dry enough.  The IBUs are about 27, so I'm not sure how well that would work with the Brett. Can anyone suggest some other ideas to bring it down?

[Ralph]

Interestingly the 3711 is taking a long time to chew through the sour saison I have in the fermentor. Much longer than the 2 belgian beers I had in the fermentation cabinet at the same time and a lot longer than the 8% saison I did previously...

Oh wait... now that I wrote that, it might be that the yeast I used for the sour saison was simply a yeast pour from the bottom of the 8% saison and so maybe the yeast was a bit tired after doing an 8%. The lower pH is probably not helping either... oh well, pretty sure it will still ferment through fine.

[Dougal]

How long is long though? I found the smaller beers I did with 3711 took a good 3 weeks to finish, but finished at 1.000. It's not blindingly fast, but it just keeps going.

[Ralph]

Yeh, it is about 3 weeks now and slowing down. Will be hard to tell what the FG usually would be with the lactic acid in solution tho... I have not done a hydro sample just yet as the airlock has still been plenty active.