Not sure if I should bottle yet

[JJIVin]

I have a porter sitting in secondary and would like for it to be ready for Thanksgiving. I haven't seen any action since I racked it and the gravity has hardly dropped any in the ten days or so it's been in secondary. Normally I'd bottle it without concern. The issue I'm seeing is that the OG was 1.062 and it's fermented down to 1.018 which by my math is only 70% attenuation. So if it is a case of a stalled fermentation, I add priming sugar and it ferments the sugars added plus residual sugars from before I could end up with a couple cases of bottle bombs. Any thoughts or suggestions?

 

[Kickass]

Yeah, 71% attenuation. That might very well be in expected range. How big is the batch, what yeast did you use, how much did use, what was your grain bill and mash temp. This will help determine if 71% is reasonable

 

[Kahler]

How long has it been in the fermenter?

 

[JimRausch]

1.018 is not bad for a porter, depending on how many adjunct malts you used and what your mash temp was. And of course what yeast you used. Be sure the SG is not dropping slowly by taking several readings a couple days apart, but she's likely done.
And by the way, you'll probably get multiple posts asking "why are you bothering with a secondary anyways?" Personal choice. I don't often anymore, but when I do rack off the yeast, i make sure she's finished fermenting first by having a stable SG.

 

[JJIVin]

It's a 5gallon batch. I used safale-04 . Its an extract brew so I don't have a mash temp for you all, but it was 6.3 pounds of dark malt extract syrup and 2 pounds of wheat dried malt extract, plus a grain blend of 1lb obsidian, .5lb English dark crystal, and .5lb English black malt. I did a secondary to add rum soaked oak chips and vanilla beans. When I put it in secondary the SG was 10.20 and that was at least a week ago. I don't remember exactly when I started the brew but it was at least 3weeks ago.

 

[JimRausch]

Extract batch- there you go. Another victim of the infamous 'extract 1.020' syndrome. Extract batches often finish around 1.020. By the way, it sounds great, and I'll bet tastes wonderful! Go ahead and bottle.