Wanted a “Strong Dirty Blonde”; she ended up a bit anemic. Although I’m starting to suspect that my hydrometer might be a bit off. In any case, she has a nice color to her; if a bit cloudy.
This is an uncarbonated sample. Went into bottle yesterday. Should be ready in 2 weeks.
Hydrometers are pretty simple and are rarely wrong, though I’m sure it happens. I’d sooner suspect that there is a missing temperature correction or poor attenuation. Are you mashing cool or otherwise ending with a viscous / sweet beer?
Josh, I hear you loud and clear. Not really sweet, just a higher final gravity than I wanted/expected. My brewing app has the built in temp adjustment for recording gravities. In any case, I’m not entering any competitions anytime soon so it’s not a big issue. My mash was a pretty steady 150+ F in a converted cooler. Not much loss.
Congrats on another batch! Try your hydro in 60 degree distilled water, it should be 1.000
We have 10 gallons of Am wheat fermenting now, going to put 2 lbs of raspberries in one 5 gallon batch…then brewing an octoberfest and a big stout (both for next fall)
What was your starting gravity and which yeast were you using? And did you use a starter? If you had an OG of over 1.060, chances are your yeast just pooped out - do a starter with anything over 1060 and you’ll have a better chance of hitting your final gravity.
Tom,
My OG was round 1.070. Used Safale T-58 dry yeast, so no need for a starter. Did not aerate as much as I should have. I suspect thAt temp control during fermentation could be a culprit. The FG ended around 1.024 or so. The yeast did impart a nice, spicy clove/coriander & banana/citrus profile to it. Smells like a cross between a Belgian Wit and a Heffeweisen (although I did not use any wheat malt, only 2row, maris otter & a bit of crystal 20.
Granted I know a lot more about making wine than beer but it probably wouldn’t hurt to mash a touch warmer if you want to convert more fully. I have never needed a starter to get my beers dry, and my typical path seems to be to mash a little too warm and ferment very successfully and end up with FG’s lower than anticipated… I managed to make an 11% tripel that way. Not bad but better than expected mashing, better than expected attenuation and it was a bit dry / phenolic and in the end not quite what I wanted.
What was your target FG? I would have expected with a mash temp of 150 you would have extracted mostly fermentable sugars, and that fermentation would have gone pretty smoothly. I agree with the person that said it sounds like your yeast pooped out, they had a good bit of sugar to get through, and they probably just needed a bit more encouragement.
Not to mention I have heard that Belgian style yeast’s can move slowly and often times take much longer to ferment completely compared to american yeast strains.
Congrats on the new brew though ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
!! It would be fun to start a homebrew trade/exchange thread on here. I would love to taste some other fellow brewers creations.
Yeh, it was bad timing Hollis. Chris Oxford sent me 2 bottles of his home brew at Thanksgiving, so you just missed them. I had his scotch ale and vanilla porter, and they were GREAT! It was one of the better porters I’ve had.
FYI…Hollis relocated from Charlotte to Greenville this past fall, and crashed at my place for a couple months until he got settled in. I think he moved out 3-4 weeks before I got those samples.
Doh! Well hopefully some of this beer exchange gets off the ground and I get to sample some of his work!
I use Irish Moss to clear my beers up, seems to work well.
I use Whirlfloc…but I forgot to add it to this last batch. ![[oops.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/1/1f129ddad071ffe5db6c99817c3cab666035a70a.gif "oops"){kind=small}
Did you thoroughly oxygenate your wort? Particularly for a higher gravity fermentation, the yeast really need strong cell walls to make it through to the end of the fermentation, and oxygenation helps this significantly. Also, you rather than thinking the hydrometer is off, perhaps the thermometer you are using to measure the mash temperature is off. You definitely want to favor beta amylase over alpha for a dryer finish.