Dark Ale Too Sweet

[st.sloth]

Howdy chaps

Recently put this baby on:
Morgan's Iron Bark Dark Ale

Thomas Coopers Dark Malt Extract

Dark Brew Booster #12

Kit Yeast


Original Gravity - 1.060 Final Gravity 1.024

She's way too sweet. I had my suspicions that adding a Brew Booster PLUS a tin of unhopped malt extract would be too much. Turns out it was.

What should I have done? Ditched one of the ingredients? Or boiled it up with bittering hops?

And is there anything I can do to bitter it up? (i'm not holding my breath)

Cheers, Louie

 

[BusinessTime]

Howdy chaps

Recently put this baby on:
Morgan's Iron Bark Dark Ale

Thomas Coopers Dark Malt Extract

Dark Brew Booster #12

Kit Yeast


Original Gravity - 1.060 Final Gravity 1.024

She's way too sweet. I had my suspicions that adding a Brew Booster PLUS a tin of unhopped malt extract would be too much. Turns out it was.

What should I have done? Ditched one of the ingredients? Or boiled it up with bittering hops?

And is there anything I can do to bitter it up? (i'm not holding my breath)

Cheers, Louie

I have a similar problem and am contemplating some kind of hop tea/French press addition to try and add some bitterness. There are some threads on the forum that talk abt these methods but nothing really definitive that I could find.

 

[The Big Burper]

ss,


Try a shandy with 1/2 ale and 1/2 tonic water, at least it won't be
as sweet. You may have to drink twice as much to get the required head spin. :icon_vomit:

cheers
BB

 

[bum]

That FG seems a touch on the high side to me. I'd be leaning towards this as your reason. I'm sure I've made beers with more fermentables than that (though admittedly I've never aimed to get as dark as you have (cos I'm a racialist) so I could be way off base) and they finished lower and bitter as hell.

 

[Pennywise]

Howdy chaps

Recently put this baby on:
Morgan's Iron Bark Dark Ale

Thomas Coopers Dark Malt Extract

Dark Brew Booster #12

Kit Yeast


Original Gravity - 1.060 Final Gravity 1.024

She's way too sweet. I had my suspicions that adding a Brew Booster PLUS a tin of unhopped malt extract would be too much. Turns out it was.

What should I have done? Ditched one of the ingredients? Or boiled it up with bittering hops?

And is there anything I can do to bitter it up? (i'm not holding my breath)

Cheers, Louie

Way too much dark malt in this one, which is generally alot sweeter. I'd replace the Coopers dark malt with just some light malt and ditch the brew booster, whatever that is. If you are up for some grain steeping then a couple of hundred grans of choc malt would be good, also some hops boiled in the malt extract for 10-15 mins (at least a 6 litre boil), something like EKG or Fuggles.

 

[glaab]

I've had the same problem before, that coopers liquid extract is probably the culprit. I get some nice bitter stout [southwark old stout :icon_drool2: ] and make black 'n' tans. I made a stout that was too bitter as well. A toucan of Coopres Stout and Dark which was about 90IBU's I think. A quarter of a jug of that topped up wit some amber ale and away you go :icon_drunk: Cheers

 

[ianh]

Howdy chaps

Recently put this baby on:
Morgan's Iron Bark Dark Ale

Thomas Coopers Dark Malt Extract

Dark Brew Booster #12

Kit Yeast


Original Gravity - 1.060 Final Gravity 1.024

She's way too sweet. I had my suspicions that adding a Brew Booster PLUS a tin of unhopped malt extract would be too much. Turns out it was.

What should I have done? Ditched one of the ingredients? Or boiled it up with bittering hops?

And is there anything I can do to bitter it up? (i'm not holding my breath)

Cheers, Louie

Hi Louie

Sorry can't help with the current brew, But if you get my spreadsheet from this forum it may give you guidance in future.

I don't know what is in Dark Brew Booster 12 (but say half dark malt- half dextrose). If you plug the ingredients into my spreadsheet and look at the balance graph shows the brew to be on the malty side, but if you look at the predicted FG 1.013 against the actual FG 1.024, then this explains why it is too sweet.

Hope that helps.

cheers

Ian

 

[st.sloth]

Yes, logic would suggest that she didn't ferment out completely. But it was in primary for an entire month at 16 - 18 degrees. It wasn't gonna budge lower than 1.024 (ok - that bold text is gonna have to stay. i can't unbold it) In secondary for another 11 days.

Very unsure as to why it would stop fermenting like that.

Have had the brew in a corny naturally carbonating (120g dex) for just over 2 weeks now. hooked it up last night - not quite carbonated enough yet, but there was carbonation, indicating that the yeast was still active.

Just sipping on your shandy experiment Burper. While it gives me something to drink (have caught myself out with nothing else ready for at least 10 days) it would take me a damn while to get through it (not big on mixed drinks). Cheers for the suggestion.

I guess my HBS got a little excited when I went in and said "I want to make a dark beast". He chucked those three ingredients in my arms (the bloke in question was once Brewing Champion of the World! No ****)

Live and learn eh?

Cheers for the feedback. Looks like I've got a dessert beer on my hands.

Louie

 

[bum]

No ****

Are you sure?

 

[st.sloth]

John Greenwood: Supreme Champion Brewer - New Zealand International Beer Awards 2001

 

[st.sloth]

Just a follow-up on how things went with this one:

About half way through the keg now - don't ask me to explain how, but within about 2 weeks of my last post, the robust malt flavours had become slightly stronger than the sweetness, in the end bringing it to about where i was hoping it to be.

The only kicker being now that the weather is rapidly improving, dampening considerably my lust for a beer this dark. The upside however is that the beer will still only have room to improve.

How long is too long to leave a brew in a keg?

Thanks for all the input earlier guys.