First All Grain Brew, Fermentation stuck around 1.030

Ingredients
1

I got a good deal on a shiny new Grainfather for Black Friday. I have been looking to make the jump to all grain for a while, and consuming all the books and podcasts I can get my hands on. So I felt like I was ready. Living in the NW I wanted an IPA, so I started with 15# of 2row, and 1.5# of crystal 60.

My temps were:
104F for 30 min
140 for 30min
158 for 30 min
167 for 10min
sparge at 170

My first possible foul up was sparging 3 gal, even though my calculations said 1.65gal. The app told me 3gal, I followed it. It was too much (there was blow off in the airlock; to fix this I dumped about two pints from the bottom of the my conical to give space about a day into the ferment).

My second foulup may be that my aqua airpump produced a ton of foam, so I didn’t give a full 30min to aerate. Probably closer to 10/15min. I did splash when dumping into conical. (I use a anti foam I got from HB store, but it doesn’t work for me)

My OG was 1.060, and was expecting a FG of 1.015.

I pitched yeast from a previous batch; WLP001. Temp in my basement dropped to 58, so two days in a put a heat wrap on, and fermented at 66F. Dry hopped 10 days and 14 days later with 1 and 2 oz of pellets respectively. I took a gravity reading at 16 days to find it at 1.032. HB store said pitch new batch and bring temp to 68. I did. With very little activity I pushed the temp to 72. The gravity didn’t change after a week.

I figured my massive dryhop might be gunking up the works, and I wanted to get my beer off of there–I transferred to secondary. To change my karma, I pitched Wyeast 1056 (the batch was only a week old, so I would imagine very viable). The airlock bubbled. We fermented most of the week at 68, then bumped to 70F.

I checked my gravity today and it was 1.028. Still very far from what I wanted (a month after starting). I checked my Refractometer, and it seems to be calibrated. My guess is that I didn’t get enough oxygen for the yeast to thrive. Or maybe I had too many steps in my mash. I didn’t do a starter for any of the new yeast, but thought 1.030 was low enough to not need it. Any help would be appreciated. I have no more guesses as to what I am doing wrong.

Thank you
Jason

2

Refractometers are not made to measure fermented beer. The alcohol jacks the reading. You will need to convert using a calculator.

http://seanterrill.com/2012/01/06/refractometer-calculator/

You’re roughly at 1.014

3

You are a king among gentlemen. I have been going in circles on this one. Thank you.

4

Just noticed this post - don’t sweat it, jtruther, that mistake is a common one.  That is in part why Sean Terrill developed the calculator.  For what it is worth, I always double check finishing gravities with a calibrated hydrometer - that is, when I care to measure it (once you get your system dialed in and use Beersmith or other recipe spreadsheet, along with Brunwater for water additions, you can use less of the measuring devices - though I still like a refractometer for determining OG).

Welcome to the forum and enjoy that first Grainfather beer!