I did account for the one point high…it actually read 1.021.
A lot of the yeast that I pitched is sitting on top but hasn’t formed any type of krausen. I am going to wait 5-7 days before kegging. I will update if I see any activity. Maybe I will get lucky and get a few more points somehow.
My post is just an educated guess. Obviously theres no way for me to just declare it so. The charting out of how alpha and beta react per temp and ph is good info, but also keep in mind that its just projected optimum ranges. Its not like when ph is 5.5 the beta is kicking butt, then at 5.51 it instantly denatures… But I think that when you are in those gaps, like top end for beta but sweet spot for alpha, that slight unexpected variation can happen. Couple that with some adjunct that didnt bring and DP to the party and I think you have a good suspect.
You mentioned 5.5 for flavor in the final beer. Try tweaking the final beer for that. I’ve been having great luck. See my thread on playing with final beer ph.
Took a look inside the fermenter this morning. There is a lot of floating yeast on top of the beer but no signs of activity. I am getting negative pressure in the airlock which is strange since I have been warming the beer up. Hopefully the yeast starts to drop out so I can keg. I can deal with 4% ABV beer for a change of pace…
I noticed that you did not mention any form of aeration prior to pitching or after pitching your yeast. I highly doubt that your mash pH was that screwed up that it lead to such a poor fermentation. Sometimes a lack of oxygen (especially with harvested yeast from a prior batch) introduced to the wort can lead to a stuck/stalled fermentation.
Did you aerate this batch well?
Good thought. I aerated this batch as normal although I don’t do anything fancy like pure O2. Just a three foot drop when transferring into the fermenter from the spigot on my bottling bucket. Never had a problem before.
I took a reading this morning and it doesn’t appear to have changed. I was going to keg but since I can’t leave anything alone I added about 6 oz dark brown sugar dissolved in one cup of water. This should hopefully promote a bit more activity, possibly drop the FG a point or two, and get the beer closer to 4.5% ABV.
Tasting the sample now. Kind of has a tangy sourness to it along with some tannic character like you would get from iced tea. Smells fine; malt, biscuit, touch of chocolate. Hopefully it is just from a lot of suspended yeast as this is a very low flocculator. At this point, it is what it is so I am not too worried though it would be a shame to have to dump it…we’ll see…
Sometimes that is not enough oxygen for yeast. Especially yeast that you harvested from a slurry from the last batch. These yeast cells have pretty much used up all of their oxygen reserves and are in great need of O2 to build their abilities to properly reproduce and take in necessary materials for energy production.
You may have gotten away with this in the past when using a fresher yeast pitch or dried yeast, but this practice may finally have caught up to you especially if you have some unfermentables in your grain bill.
Got ya. Thanks. I thought that a 3 day old slurry would be ready to go but I guess not. If one out of 50 batches has less than ideal oxygen that I guess I can deal with it. I am a yeast novice. My results have been good for the most part so it is not worth it for me worry to about.
Aerating a beer is easy especially if you use carboys. Once you rack it into your fermenter, simply cover the mouth with a sanitized piece of foil and swirl the crap out of it for 3-5 minutes based on OG. The higher the OG the higher the minutes.
…or save your back and get a mix stir. 
My method of aeration works great for me with the exception of this batch which is still just a possibility…
Not sure when I will keg this guy now. Hopefully this weekend. Adding the sugar kick started the yeast and it currently has a thick krausen hanging around. I failed to realize that adding the sugar probably won’t drop the FG but it will boost ABV.
Brewinhard beat me to chase. The source of your problem is borderline aeration. Dry yeast does not require much in the way of aeration because it is propagated aerobically below the Crabtree threshold; therefore, it goes into a fermentation will with fully-charged ergosterol and unsaturated fatty acid (UFA) reserves. Cropped yeast is an entirely different animal. Cropped yeast has low ergosterol and UFA reserves. Yeast cells use O2 to synthesize these compounds, which, in turn, are used to repair and build plasma membranes. The plasma membrane is what controls how well a cell can pass nutrients and waste products through the cell wall. These reserves are shared with daughter cells during the fermentation. Low dissolved O2 coupled with quiescent yeast cells is a recipe for high terminal gravity.
If you have an old broken racking cane or length 3/8" copper tubing lying around, you can make a poor man’s aerator by drilling a bunch holes downward at a 45-degree angle. The aerator is inserted into a piece of tubing that runs from your ball valve on your kettle to your fermentation vessel. Wort mixes with air when it passes through the holes. It is best to use this device in a non-drafty room. A shroud can be made by drilling a hole in the closed end of a prescription vial and inserting a rubber grommet with a 3/8" I.D. The closed end slides over the aerator, closed end up, such that the holes are inside of the prescription vial. Sterile cotton is lightly packed into the open end. The keyword here is lightly. Air needs to be able to pass through the cotton. The sterile cotton is there to collect dust. I do not use a shroud. I merely place the aerator down into a carboy. The air inside a freshly sanitized carboy should be relatively dust free, and a carboy is under positive pressure while it is being filled.
Poor Man’s Aerator
Could you do the same thing with the tubing? I use an auto-siphon to rack from primary to secondary, but going from kettle to chill plate to primary I just have silicone tubing. I’d love to put an inline sanitary O2 supply but not sure the CFO would approve the aforementioned transaction.
A section of hard tubing works best. A new 3/8" racking cane is less than a $3.00 transaction. If you ask around, you should be able to find someone who has part of broken one or an unused bottle filler. The device is called a poor man’s aerator for a reason.
Kegged the beer today. FG after adding sugar was 1.018 so that make me feel a little bit better. Considering the high FG and Munich malt base, the sample tasted sort of thin and watery.
Sugar additions can do that to the body and mouthfeel of a beer. But I bet once you get that one carbonated up properly that it will be tasting pretty good. Just a guess… 
