Finishing Gravity

[JWB]

I have been extract brewing for over 12 months now adding my own combination of hops and adjuncts.
After boiling for an hour adding kettle hops and flavour hops in the last 10 minutes I force cool and top up the fermenter with cold water to the 20ltr mark and ferment with saflager yeast at 12C in the fridge.
I rack after 7 days and and leave for another 7 days or until I have an empty keg. Then carbonate and start drinking about 2 weeks later.
My SG is usually around the 1050 mark or a bit lower but I dont seem to be able to ferment it out further than FG 1010.
This leaves the beer a little thicker than I like. Almost like an Irish Ale which is ok sometimes but for summer drinking I am looking for something with a little bit less body and dare I say it h34r: like a VB
I was thinking of using less malt but there must be a way to get the final gravity down a little more
Any thoughts on the matter?


Cheers

JWB

 

[lonte]

OK, despite the fact that 1050 to 1010 is pretty good attenuation so really your yeast is gonna work hard to go better than that, and despite the fact that 1010 really is not that indicitive of full body, a simple answer to your requirement is plain ol' cane sugar. substitute some of the extract for cane suagr and you will likely see lower FG and certainly thinner body. If it's a bit "cidery" then maybe dextrose in place of the cane sugar.

 

[bconnery]

I have been extract brewing for over 12 months now adding my own combination of hops and adjuncts.
After boiling for an hour adding kettle hops and flavour hops in the last 10 minutes I force cool and top up the fermenter with cold water to the 20ltr mark and ferment with saflager yeast at 12C in the fridge.
I rack after 7 days and and leave for another 7 days or until I have an empty keg. Then carbonate and start drinking about 2 weeks later.
My SG is usually around the 1050 mark or a bit lower but I dont seem to be able to ferment it out further than FG 1010.
This leaves the beer a little thicker than I like. Almost like an Irish Ale which is ok sometimes but for summer drinking I am looking for something with a little bit less body and dare I say it h34r: like a VB
I was thinking of using less malt but there must be a way to get the final gravity down a little more
Any thoughts on the matter?


Cheers

JWB

Your FG depends on what in your beer if fermentable and how much you have of it. If you are using a lot of things that don't ferment out fully then your FG will be higher. You could decrease things such as malto-dextrin and malt and increase sugars to achieve this. You've mentioned adjuncts - depending on what these are you might want to adjust levels of those.

Also if you are consistently using saflager you may consider using a different yeast which is known as having a high attentuation rate such as US56 or Nottingham for ales (assuming you only want to use dried), or else make a starter to ensure you have a big lot of yeast ready to eat whatever you have in there...

I don't have a lot of experience with lagers but potentially you may consider a longer primary time? Someone else could help you better there...

You might also, if you haven't already, consider putting your recipe into a calculating tool such as beersmith or an online one like beertools to see if 1010 is expected for your particular ingredients...

 

[barneyhanway]

Unfortunately with extract, the malt is as fermentable as the extract maker made it. Theres nothing you can do to alter the fermentability of extract.

There is however a few things you can consider to get a drier beer:
You could replace some of your extract with something that is more fermentable - maltodextrine or dextrose or something similar. This will thin the beer out, but will make it drier - the final gravity should end up lower.

or,

You could get some of your fermentables from a partial mash with a low mash temperature - something around 60-64 degrees. Mashing grain at the lower end of the temperature range results in wort that is more fermentable.

 

[braufrau]

OK, despite the fact that 1050 to 1010 is pretty good attenuation so really your yeast is gonna work hard to go better than that, and despite the fact that 1010 really is not that indicitive of full body, a simple answer to your requirement is plain ol' cane sugar. substitute some of the extract for cane suagr and you will likely see lower FG and certainly thinner body. If it's a bit "cidery" then maybe dextrose in place of the cane sugar.

Or you could use
candy sugar

 

[Stuster]

Cane sugar is fine. It will not give you a cidery taste. There is no need to pay extra for processed candi sugar IMO, but if your wallet is bulging, give it a go.

All good advice so far. What gravity is the beer at when you rack to secondary, JWB?

 

[Wortgames]

I agree with Ionte, 1050 to 1010 sounds fine and 1010 isn't that heavy - what's a VB, probably about 1008?

The dextrose is a good idea for thinning the brew and keeping the alcohol content up, but you could even try doing something really simple like increasing the water or decreasing the extract (you are currently using about 3.3Kg right?) and aiming for a slightly lighter beer with an OG of 1040 - 1045 instead.

 

[JWB]

:beer:

Thanks Guys...you sure are quick off the mark.


My racking Gravity is usually around 1020 to 1030
I am currently using 1.5kg Malt extract, 1 kg DME, 250g dried wheat malt, 3oog crystal malt
I am going to replace 500g of DME with raw sugar and try that.
I have some US56 yeast so that will go in the next brew.

I may even try a mini mash when time permits

Thanks once again
:chug:

JWB

 

[capretta]

i used the saflager yeast and found that the beers always had a residual sweet taste which has now gone after 6 months of storage. TOO LONG!!
the only brew i ever did with that yeast which seemed drier was one which i racked directly on the yeast cake of the previous brew, so if you are not already, maybe make a 1 litre starter or something so the yeast doen't peter out??
but i agree with previous posters that tho 1010 seems not bad, if you feel it has too much body just add some more fully fermentable materials dextrose etc. in my experience i dont think there is much taste difference between dextrose and sucrose (cane sugar). i once tried geletinzed rice in a minimash to raise fermentable material and to give a neutral flavour and less body. it worked well but was a bit of messing around...

 

[albrews]

I have been extract brewing for over 12 months now adding my own combination of hops and adjuncts.
After boiling for an hour adding kettle hops and flavour hops in the last 10 minutes I force cool and top up the fermenter with cold water to the 20ltr mark and ferment with saflager yeast at 12C in the fridge.
I rack after 7 days and and leave for another 7 days or until I have an empty keg. Then carbonate and start drinking about 2 weeks later.
My SG is usually around the 1050 mark or a bit lower but I dont seem to be able to ferment it out further than FG 1010.
This leaves the beer a little thicker than I like. Almost like an Irish Ale which is ok sometimes but for summer drinking I am looking for something with a little bit less body and dare I say it h34r: like a VB
I was thinking of using less malt but there must be a way to get the final gravity down a little more
Any thoughts on the matter?
Cheers

JWB

hi, you could try some "dry beer enzyme " from brewcraft for example, and add it to your beer wort.
a bit of an experiment though.

has someone had experience using "dry beer enzyme"?

cheers alan

 

[braufrau]

i used the saflager yeast and found that the beers always had a residual sweet taste which has now gone after 6 months of storage. TOO LONG!!

Laurie Strachan in "The complete guide to beer and brewing" reckons that dry yeast
leaves behind sweet compounds. He doesn't explain why that should be a problem for dry
yeast and not liquid yeast. He recommends culturing coopers to mop up all the extra
sweeties. Not much help for a larger though!

He also recommends that all recipes have some cane sugar in them. Tim Cooper wrote the
forward to the book and he mentions the sugar reccomendation as one of the useful features.
And Coopers use sugar in many (all?) of their beers.

Of course, as someone pointed out, there are things that contribute to FG that don't ferment,
no matter what yeast you use!

Sorry I don't have the book in front of me so I can't be more specific.

-braufrau

 

[Stuster]

Braufrau

I don't really agree much with that advise from Laurie Strachan. I'm not sure when that book was written, but some dry yeasts (maybe brought out since that was written) attenuate very well. US56 (now US05) is a good example. The last beer I used it in came down from 1048 to 1006, 87% attenuation, and tastes good to me.

Sugar is fine to use, but I don't think that all beers will benefit from the use of it. Since it attenuates more or less completely, you will tend to get a drier, thinner bodied beer. If you are aiming for a full bodied style then this sort of defeats the object. :unsure: