Fg Too High Or Ok With 10% Caramalt?

[BjornJ]

Hi,
does this FG sounds right?

I brewed a mild a while ago that was only 2,2% before bottle conditioning.
I really liked the taste of it but it was a bit on the thin side even for a light beer

This time I changed up little bit to up OG to 1.038.
Still a light beer but hopefully not so thin.

I mashed for one hour at 69 degrees and had 10% caramalt so I guessed that beersmith's estimated FG of 1.010 might be too low.
But it has stopped at 1.016, confirmed over 2 days.

The recipe was
51% Pale malt
29% munich II
10% caramalt
5% carafa special II
5% dememera sugar

OG 1.038, FG 1.016

Northern brewer @60 min
Saaz @40 min
for a total IBU of 22

US-05, 9 days so far at 19 days.


Does it sound right with 1.016, leaving the beer at 2.86% alc before bottle conditioning?
I had expected 1.012 giving 3,4%.

I'm happy with 1.016, no worries.
Will leave it several more days anyway to make sure it really is done before bottling.

Just asking if this is expected due to the % of caramalt, is there a way to estimate FG based on % of crystal malts rather than only yeast attenuation?


thanks
Bjorn

 

[BjornJ]

 

[dr K]

First, discount the caramalt, its most likely not your problem.
You can probably discount poor enzyme activity (slack malt, wrong temps and times etc) as you hit, it seems, your target SG.
From whats left poor yeast activity seems probable, now whether thats from a wort,yeast count, nutritional or a temperature problem ?

K

 

[BjornJ]

Hi Dr. K,
so it sounds like it was more a fermentation thing than mashing/recipe?

I re-pitched the US-05 from a brew I bottled the week before.
Pitched the room temp yeast slurry in a litre of wort, then next day pitched this into 23 litres of wort.
Started with maybe 2 dl of yeast slurry washed a couple of times with cooled, boiled water so it seemed like only yeast.
The wort was foaming well the same day I pitched.
The only aeration I did was tap from the cube into the fermenter from a bit of height so it foamed up.

Could it have been yeast count, maybe..

 

[dr K]

if you are happy with your yeast count/health at pitch that leaves
nutrition
temperature
probably others, time has been discounted (19 days)
Nutrition, a wort should have sufficient nutrients for healthy yeast activity (though I always add yeast nutrient possibly to counter any chemical imbalance my wort may have picked up), but not always (ph and minerals, apart from just FAN come into play), a low gravity may not help.
Next time add some yeast nutrient, a number of brands are available, see what happens..

K

 

[Pat Casey]

Overpitched.

Pat