Bourbon County Stout Clone Recipe Help

I am having trouble deciding my next move on this recipe, any advice is greatly appreciated.

I started with this recipe:
https://www.homebrewsupply.com/learn/bourbon-county-stout-clone-recipe.html

After reading several article and blogs about "Big" beers, I decided to go the "efficient" route and run two mashes, then have an extended pre-boil to get hit the target OG. Here are the specifics:

Total Grains:
2-row: 18lbs
Munich Light: 5lbs
Black Malt: 1lb
Chocolate Malt: 1lb
Crystal 60: 1lb
Roasted Barley: 1lb
Flaked wheat: 3lbs
Total: 30lbs

So I took 50% of the above for each mash:

mash @ 152' for 60mins
batch sparge @ 168'

Batch size: 5.25
Efficiency: 75%
Target Vol: 6.46
Target / Actual PreBoil OG: 1.063

According to the boiloff calculator to get 13 gal. @ 1.063 to 1.135, i need to reduce by ~5 gal. or boil for 3.5 hours.

My kettle isn't big enough for that volume, so I ended up utilizing 3 pots and boiling down, testing with refractometer and hydrometer along the way. Based on all my homework, I was really concerned about hitting this number, so much so I guess I didnt consider that I would blow past it. Which is what happened at some point between the 3.5 hours and the actual 1.5 boil. Either way I ended up with 5.25 gallons @ 1.153.
I did add a 1/4 teaspoon of yeast nutrient that was blended into water, into the boil in the last 10 minutes. I also did an air pump treatment for about 45 minutes while I was cleaning and letting the wort get to 66.

I had created a starter of us-05 that had previously been harvested using the brulosophy method, according to dad's was sized appropriately for 1.135. I had the starter in the fermentation chamber @ 66 ready to go.

Here is a rough timeline:
10/9/2017 ~ 9:00 pm pitched yeast
10/10 6:30 am : nothing in the airlock
10/10 6:30 pm - Bubbling like crazy
10/12 6:30am - still bubbling, a bit slower, raising to 67'
10/13 6:30am - still bubbling, a bit slower, raising to 68'
10/14 6:30am - still bubbling, a bit slower, raising to 69'
10/14 6:30pm - I pulled a sample @ 1.076, picked up WLP090, which is what I wanted in the first place, but they didnt have any, made a starter based on 1.076
10/17 6:30 pm - still no airlock activity pitched starter, let the wort drop to 66 again before pitching

So i kept waiting hoping that the activity would pickup, I tried to swirl the wort a few times but didn't have much impact.

The sample I took was decent but pretty sweet. At this point what is my best option, I dont want to ruin it trying to improve it. I plan to add oak cubes in the next couple of days, was wondering if i should try to add some boiled water with some kind of sugar? Therefore cutting the sweetness, and give the yeast something to eat to boost ABV?

Thank you in advance!

 

Thanks guys. I checked the hydrometer with water, and it was dead on 1. I pulled the sample, and today's reading was 1.062, so there has been some activity, but not quite what I was hoping for. The only packet of dried yeast i had was a danstar belle saison, so i pitched that. I will report back further progress.

@Eggman20 - what king of sugar?

 

@SFACRKnight no change in gravity as of yet. How did I end up with so much unfermentable sugar?

Just not sure what to do now.

 

I have the grain bill in the origal post. I didn’t use any extract. I used a double mash with 50% of the grain bill @152 for 60 mind. to manage all that grain and boiled down total volume. I hit my “pre-boil” target after boiling down the volume. After the final 90 minute boil I over shot the target FG.

 

Hey guys I appreciate the feed back, one other thing I noticed when taking the last sample from the fermenter, there seemed to be a lot of co2 absorbed / released in the beer, I am not sure if this is because of the Higher gravity, but is it possible that there is a higher level of co2 stuck in the wort might contribute to a higher gravity reading.

 

Disregard as I forgot the last reading with the extra yeast that had been shaken multiple times and I am sure was de-gassed.

 

Good news the mini yeast bomb moved 10 pts to ~ 1.05, so off to yeast nutrient and energizer I go. @Supergenious - What I did was make two recipes in beersmith, so the 50% recipe target was a per-boil volume of 6.46 gals @ 1.63, so the total volume was higher, ~ 13 gallons @ 1.063. I might had had a little more volume due to extra sparge volume. It got pretty crazy boiling 3 pots at the same time, and trying to condense pots that were boiling at the same length and starting new boils.

Thanks all again for the help!

 

I transferred to a secondary yesterday. The gravity was still ~1.05, I kept a liter of slurry, which I covered with foil. Within a few minutes it was bubbling, which inspired me to give this one more shot. I did also listen to the experimental brewing podcast and their recommendation to use a yeast cake. I didnt have anything else brewing, so I went with a 4 liter starter. I pitched the 1 liter slurry and another ~ 300 billions “new” cells from my yeast overbuilding. Now it’s got a nice layer of form, I am wondering if I should pitch it now or when it settles. I just re-read the part in “how to” where it says the starter wort should be like the pitch wort, though I never worried about this before, but in this case my wort has high ABVs already. Just looking for a consensus. On a side note what do you guys think about stir plates verese SNS?