Corn sugar after primary fermentation

[Bhamsteelerfan]

I'm making a British IPA. It's been in the fermenter for about 16 days now. Took a gravity reading, and the reading was 1.020, obviously higher than I wanted it to be. Used 8.8 lbs of Pilsen light malt extract. I've gotten some advice to warm the beer up and give it a nice swirling to wake up the yeast. I have warmed up the fermenter to about 72 degrees (it fermented between 66-68 degrees) and have given it a couple of light swirls.

I have a half pound of corn sugar (should have added it during the boil in retrospect). Could I boil it, cool it, add it to the fermenter, and would that help knock down the FG at all? Still a relative newbie, so any advice I can get is appreciated.

 

[EineProsit]

No! More sugar will raise the gravity. Take another reading after a couple more days and if no change bottle it.

 

[ArcaneXor]

The swirling and warming doesn't usually work if the fermentation has completely stalled (though exceptions prove the rule). The dextrose may be sufficient to get the sluggish yeast going again, or it may not. If that doesn't work, or you don't want to change the profile of the beer with the sugar addition, I would recommend pitching an active starter of WLP099 (works almost every time), or rehydrated CBC-1 yeast. The nuclear option would be using enzymes. Amylase is pretty benign, Ultra-Ferm is more aggressive and may dry the beer out to the mid-single digits SG.