I'm struggling with which way to go on this and thought some feedback might help.
So this past Sunday I brewed a Russian Imperial - my first for the style, as well as my first high gravity beer. My plan was to ferment it at around 64 for a week, and then ramp it up slowly to 72 for a week, before bringing it back down to cold condition.
The OG at 1.104, I pitched two different yeast strains from starters in roughly equal amounts - WLP002 and WLP500 and I expected once fermentation would be complete - in many weeks - to have a FG of around 1.027. Friday (yesterday) morning I took a gravity reading, and its at 1.018! I tasted and it has great flavor, but definitely needs to mellow, so I took it out of my fermentation freezer and have begun slowly working it up to keep the yeast active. However it occurred to me it might continue to attenuate, which is where I'd like some advice.
Where I'm struggling is this: I'm afraid if it ends up attenuating any more, I'll lose some of the sweetness characteristic of the style (I think BJCP puts the low-end of FG right at 1.018). So with that in mind, should I begin cold conditioning it now to slow the yeast down? But if I go that route, would a lot of the off flavors in the beer that I'm tasting now stick around as the yeast become less active? Is there even a chance this could attenuate more?