Red Ale with Windsor Yeast ?Trouble?

[poundsj]

I brewed this recipe up on Saturday and pitched two Packs of Lallemand Windsor yeast on a little over 6 Gallons after re-hydrating and aerating. Started of with an OG of 1.085. It took off like crazy and was chugging out the blow off tube within 18 hours. It ran strong for about 8 more hours and then started to slow down. After about 36 hours it had slowed to a crawl. At 48 hours I had virtually no activity at all so I pulled a sample to see what was going on and it was reading 1.024. I bumped the temp up from 68 to 70 and gave it a little stir to see if I could get anything going again. Well its now day three (72) and still nothing, bubble every 1-1.5 minutes and I am still reading 1.024. With a little quick math and some research I see that i reached about 70% attenuation with the Windsor yeast and thats about all its good for. I actually pitched the wrong yeast for this batch, I had intended to use the windsor for a hoppy brown and US-04 for this batch. Is this stuff done? Should I give it a couple days and re pitch with US-04? Any advice is appreciated.

I also used Wyest Beer Nutrient but it is not on the ingredient list.

12 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 58.5 %
5 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 24.4 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 3 2.4 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 4 2.4 %
4.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 5 1.2 %
4.0 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 6 1.2 %
2 lbs Corn Sugar (Dextrose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 7 9.8 %
1.00 oz Centennial [10.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 8 23.7 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.50 %] - Boil 40.0 min Hop 9 20.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [6.40 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 10 8.8 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 11 14.4 IBUs
1.20 Items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 15.0 mins) Fining 12 -
1.00 oz Cascade [6.40 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 13 5.2 IBUs
1.00 oz Centennial [10.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 14 8.6 IBUs
2.0 pkg Windsor Yeast (Lallemand #-) [23.66 ml] Yeast

 

[aiptasia]

Windsor yeast is lazy and it tends to crap out right around there. Actually, if you got 70% attenuation out of it on a 1.085 to 1.024 beer, that's pretty fantastic. It's likely to have some residual sweetness but you are using malts with unfermentable sugars in them. Red ales are noticeable for having the stronger malt backbone to stand up to the heavy hops additions. I'd probably leave it alone and let it ride another two weeks on the primary. It's likely to get down to about 1.018 or so if you're just patient and leave it on the yeast cake for a nice Diacetyl rest.

So, yeah it looks like you're fine. Let it sit.

Another tip: Windsor is notorious for not flocculating well (dropping out of the beer). It would probably help if you cold crash the beer in a fridge/freezer for 2-3 days to help the yeast settle out. If it still won't drop out, use the gelatin trick.

 

[poundsj]

Thanks for the advice. It looks like it has picked up a couple of points since tuesday so maybe we are on the right track.