Blow Your Bloody Head Off Cream Ale

[dicko]

A few weeks ago I put down a Cream Ale
A fairly basic brew with pilsener malt and hallertau hops.
I added 250 gramms of puffed wheat of the variety that you get from the supermarket along with some cara pils.
According to promash the OG should have been 1050 and I used the old faithful 1056 am ale yeast with the puffed wheat fermentable specification the same as for torrified wheat
Well I got an OG of 1057 and an FG of 1011 and considering that I wasnt using the batch size in Promash correctly, that was an enormous result.
After 7 days in the primary it still had a head or krausen on the brew that was at least 50mm high but the SG had come down to 1015.
So racked the beer and left it for another week and it came down and settled on 1011 and started to clear and as well it tasted"wicked"(that is " good" for the oldies that read this forum)
I cubed it and put it in the cold room at 4deg c for four weeks then I kegged it gassed it and tried it. Tastes Damn Fine!!!
But.
It is very high in alcohol. My calcs say it is about 6.2% which brings me to my questions.

1. The puffed wheat that you buy in the supermarket says on the label " no added sugar ".
Well I would like the fella that put that on the bag to tell me where all my fermentables came from in this brew.
What do you guys and girls think?

2. What is the absolute correct formula for calculating alcohol by volume for beer.
(a) Is it OG - FG X 7.36 or
(B) OG - FG X 7.46 or
© OG - FG divided by 0.14

Geez 5 pints and I am a bit wobbly :lol: :chug: :chug: :chug:
Well, it is Friday night. :lol:

Cheers

 

[johnno]

dicko,
I may be wrong here but I think no added sugar means just that. They dont add any sugar. But the grain may still have natural sugars attached to it. (I think). Like you said its Friday night and i just got back from a few pints at the JS brewpub in the city.

:chug: :chug:

cheers

 

[dicko]

Hi Johnno,
I have editted this post three time and still cant get it right :lol:
Bloody good beer tho' :chug: :chug:
Cheers

PS.
maybe the truth will come out tomorrow!!

 

[GOLIATH]

Dicko,

1057 - 1011 / 7.45 (Wheeler & Protz)
= 6.17% Alc by Vol

Hope this helps
Dave

 

[dicko]

Thanks Dave,
That will sure help with the calcs but i dont think it will help with the headache.
This is one "mean" beer.

Cheers

 

[JasonY]

dicko, 5 pints by 5pm friday! Hope you finished work before 4:30pm h34r:

 

[Kai]

Dicko - I'm not entirely sure there is any one absolutely correct method for calculating alcohol by specific gravity. I think it's only ever an approximation based on the proportions of products of the fermentation process.... not that the approximation is too far out, if your calcs say it's 6.2 then it probably is, give or take a .1 or two.

But I suspect I am rambling.

 

[dicko]

Jason Y,
The time difference between states allows for me to get a head start and unfotunately it shows later in the evening when you try to type, speak or communicate in any way.
On Friday nights I usually go to the local pub to put my footy tips in and have a couple of Coopers Pale Ales with the other locals, but not tonite, I've had enough. :chug: :chug: :chug:
I've faxed my tips and I'm staying home. h34r:

Kai, thanks mate,
I knew I wasn't far out with my calcs but Dave has offered an equation which I would imagine is spot on, considering his background in Micro brewing.

I just wish someone would thro' some more light on where the extra fermentables came from.
Johnno's theory sounds OK but how much fermentable sugars are really in a simple box of puffed wheat? after all, when you mention torrified wheat to most brew shops they tell you to use puffed wheat from the supermarket.
Comments?
Cheers

 

[Kai]

Did the puffed wheat come with a nutritional information panel and is there a specification for torrefied wheat on promash that you can compare it to?

And to delve into the dumber side of possible explanations, is there any chance you cocked up the OG reading?

 

[AndrewQLD]

Dicko,

Post your recipe so we can run it through our brewing calculators, if you weren't using the batch size correctly this could account for the low OG in promash. Perhaps the figure of 1,057 is what your grain bill should have given you.

Andrew

<<<According to promash the OG should have been 1050 and I used the old faithful 1056 am ale yeast with the puffed wheat fermentable specification the same as for torrified wheat
Well I got an OG of 1057 and an FG of 1011 and considering that I wasnt using the batch size in Promash correctly, that was an enormous result.>>>>>

 

[dicko]

Hi Andrew,
All my other brews ended up with a LOWER OG than predicted while I was using the batch size as the volume in the fermenter.
I have done two brews since my new understanding of BATCH SIZE in promash and the one I fly sparged was spot on and the one I batched sparged was two points low, but I put that down to the fact that my mash tun is very small and I couldnt get the last three litres of water in the batch until the level had dropped.
Any way here is the recipe;

View attachment Cream_Ale_07_Jun_2004.txt

 

[jayse]

Hi dicko
Just posting half cut after quickly reading through your thread.
First thing i note is no added sugar means proberly no added cane sugar any other form of sugar is fair game. Like wheat bix and others claim they don't add any 'sugar' but they add a hole heap of other types of fermentables which may not be sugar as the general population think sugar is but to us brewers its all fermentable. So they can coat those puffed wheat thingos'with honey or malt extract and say no added sugar but as far as we are concerned its all fermentables. What you can guarentee with TF torrified is just that puffed wheat and the only fermentables you get out of it is the ones that are broken down in the mash.

Thats my first look at it here re the supermarket puffed wheat.
Otherwise i trust your consistency and calcs wether you have promash batch size set right or not i can still see your calcs are always very consistent so a effiency jump does not seem likely.

Anyway have on of those cream ale's for me

Jayse

 

[dicko]

Yeah, thanks for that Jayse,
I figured it was something like that happening.
Unfortunately I used the whole box of it in the brew and then threw the container away.
Next time I would suggest to anyone that they at least TASTE what they are including in their recipe.
Now I dont mind the strong beer but whatever is in it gives me a monster headache each time I drink it.
I will, however, persevere until every last drop of the Cream Ale is gone and the next one I do will have torrified wheat ( the proper stuff thanks to The Jovial Monk ) and not the supermarket variety.

:chug: :chug: :chug:

Cheers

 

[AndrewQLD]

Dicko,

According to beersmith 1.052 @72 % eff and 80% eff would give you 1.058.

Maybe your efficiency is improving???

 

[dicko]

Hi Andrew,
It would be nice to believe that my efficiency had improved that much but unfortunately I think I have to lean more toward the fact that there were some "hidden" fermentables in that Puffed wheat.
I am doing another Cream Ale Tommorrow or Sunday ( as soon as the yeast is ready) with the the same ingredients except I am using genuine torrified wheat, so I will post here how it goes and in particular what OG I achieve.
Cheers

 

[PostModern]

But there was only 200 odd grams of puffed wheat in there. Even if it was 100% adulterated with sugar, that'd only be 200g.

 

[jayse]

Yeap i jumped over that there, Being it was just 200g the extra extract potential would not give that much of a difference. Rough calcs of the top of my head give me for a extra 10 points of gravity from that it would have to be close to the extract potential of sugar ie 100%. actually even higher which is not possible so i think it does look like you may have got better effiency that day after all.

Anyway have fun with the next one Dicko.

Jayse

 

[jayse]

Ok looking at the 200g again the maximum difference you would get if it was actually abit higher in extract potential is 1.001. it would proberly be more like 1.0005. So i think you can clearly rule out that as the cause Dicko.


Jayse

 

[dicko]

Yes,
you guys are all correct, I ran it through Promash using cane sugar as a substitute and it still only gave me a couple of extra points.
So, the only conclusion that I can offer is, somehow I got another 10% from the mash.
It has only ever happened on that brew since I have been mashing so I dont know what I have done.
It is definately very high in alcohol, well by the results of drinking anyway.
When I went to rack that brew it had a massive foam like krausen on the top of the primary ferment, biggest I have ever seen, and this was after about seven days from memory.
In the second fermenter it cleared up and came out very clear after being cubed at 4 deg c for a few weeks.
I am going to do another one this weekend as it came out tasting quite good except for the headache each time you drink it, so I will see how this one goes.
If I get back to the supermarket in Whyalla and they have some of that puffed wheat I will make a note of its entire contents and post.
Cheers