Double IPA Floundering

My Double IPA is exhibiting poor attenuation. I racked it Saturday to secondary after three weeks in primary, and it still showed a specific gravity of 1.035, when it should be much lower, preferably in the low 20s. I pitched some dry yeast (Cooper's) in hopes of getting some fresh yeast to resume fermentation, but I'm not seeing any activity. I might consider pitching champagne yeast, but I'd much prefer not to. There's no reason a 1.082 ale should need champagne yeast. Still, time will tell. The hydrometer samples have not been bad...with all the immense hops, the residual sweetness from the high specific gravity is not unpleasant.

Friday I started another mead, or to be more accurate, a cyser. 12 pounds of clover honey and 4 gallons of apple cider, without any water. I'm fairly certain the apples will not remain very apparent after fermentation, as the cider blend was filtered, sweet, and nondescript. I also used EC-1118, a saccharomyces bayanus strain, also known as champagne yeast. It is a very vigorous and thorough fermentor that is sure to attenuate this mead to its capacity, producing a very lightly flavoured, crisp, and potent mead...an ideal "clean slate" upon which to craft a ginger metheglin. In secondary I plan to add a full pound of freshly peeled and chopped ginger root. All in all, what I'm looking at is a very strong "ginger wine" with a light body, a potency in the range of fortified wine, and a very strong ginger flavour. This will be an ideal aperitif, palate cleansing and fresh, but not something one would want a large glass of. It will be, to make up a new term, a "zingimel", loosely meaning ginger mead. Believe me, this one will need to age a long time, being of such high gravity and using champagne yeast. At bottling I'd be willing to wager it will taste like kerosene and ethanol. All that will mellow with time and it should be a nice long-aging mead. I will probably use composite corks.

The Koelsch is finishing up its stay in secondary, and if my count is right, next weekend is bottling time. After three weeks to carbonate, I will be cold-aging it in a refrigerator until Christmas. I will be quite interested to see how it comes out.