Help or suggestions on how I ended up with such a high FG?

[motman]

Hi all,
I"m hoping you guys can help me out to learn something from my current brewing experience with a fairly dark IPA that has ended up with a high FG (that does not seem to be a stalled ferment). I ended up with a FG of 1020 when Beer smith estimated 1016. I've got absolutely no idea why, although I did make a fair ol number of beginner mistakes (this was my second non-kit brew and first with some specialty grains). I'll list the screw ups after the recipe so see if anyone thinks they may have contributed.

Really just hoping to gain some insight as to how / why this would have occured. My thoughts are that perhaps the tiny pot didn't allow the sugar to dissolve effectively or that I got more out of the specialty grains than expected.

Recipe:
American IPA (14)[/size]

type: Extract
Batch Size: 40.00 l
Boil Size: 9.17 l
Boil Time: 60 min
End of Boil Vol: 7.28 l
Final Bottling Vol: 40.00 l
Fermentation: Ale, Single Stage
Date: 31 Aug 2014
Target OG 1068 - measured 1068
Target FG 1016 - measured 1020


43.00 l Brisbane Water

18.00 g Gypsum (Calcium Sulfate) (Mash 60.0 mins)

1.00 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (59.1 EBC) 11.8 %

0.20 kg Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) 2.4 %

2.50 kg Light Dry Extract (15.8 EBC) 29.4 % - 60 min boil

80.00 g Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min 7.8 IBUs

20.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 20.0 min 0.5 IBUs

10.00 g Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min 0.5 IBUs

4.80 kg Light Dry Extract [Boil for 5 min](15.8 EBC) 56.5 %

40.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min 0.3 IBUs

20.00 g Amarillo [9.20 %] - Boil 5.0 min 0.3 IBUs

15.00 g Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min 0.2 IBUs

3.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) [50.28 ml]

95.00 g Cascade [5.50 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days

20.00 g Nelson Sauvin [12.00 %] - Dry Hop 3.0 Days



Screw ups:

• Huge boil over after first hops addition - added another 20g galaxy to make up for what may have been lost
• Huge boil over when try to add the late addition DME (I have finally reluctantly realized that this pot just ain't big enough)
• Just could not dissolve all of the DME only got possibly 4.5 instead of the 4.8kg in there before the stuff just wouldn't dissolve. I added most of the liquid, added some more water and dissolved the remaining chunks as best I could.
• I dropped some DME and added a couple of hundred grams to make up for it so don't really know exactly how much I added but it was somewhere in the arena of 8kg total as opposed to the hoped for 8.3
• I added the boiled liquid to the fermenter (containing ambient, filtered but not boiled water) via a siphon hose. Whilst I attempted to aerate as much as I could during this process, I did not mix it much afterwards. I suspect I would have had a fair bit of stratification, probably explaining why I got the expected OG (more dense product near the bottom of the fermenter

Process

• Steeped grains for 30 mins, after heating from cold until reaching 68c
• added 2.5kg of extract, brining it to around 1020 from memory
• Went through standard 60 min boil and hop additions bar the move to the BBQ burner outside post boil over
• Transferred to fermenter
• Cooled from about 34 to 20 in fridge
• rehydrated three safale 05 sachets (feb this year date), pitched with a gentle stir
• Good ferment after about 20 hours
• By day 8, bubbling had reduced to every 20s and SG was 1020
• By day 14 after some swirling and temp raise, still 1020
• Ran fast ferment test as per Manticle's article (thanks Manticle, awesome article)
• Both fast ferment test and fermenter sample still 1020 by day 17. I put the test back in the cupboard to continue to attempt to ferment but am confident now it isn't going anywhere.
• The beer tasts really pretty good from the fermenter, so I'll now start chilling slowly and bottle in about a week. Hopefully the bitterness remains and balances out the sweetness (and I don't make a heap of bottle bombs).

I've now decided this was way too stressful and have purchased a 70l pot, huge burner BIAB set up and will go all grain or partial mash depending on the gravity of the beer. But I'd be really interested to hear any input on the high FG (or if you think I'll be making bombs despite the fast ferment test).

Thanks for any input you might have.

Cheers,
Tom

 

[Major Arcana]

What was the target OG?

 

[motman]

Target was 1068 - edited the original post. Cheers.

 

[Redracer]

It might be the fermentability of the extract and/or grains is lower than expected. The steeping of 1.2Kg of grain may not produce fermentable sugars but will generate flavour, colour and body (Higher FG) to the final beer. You have got just over 70% apparent attenuation from your yeast compared to the expected 76% so considering the issues you had on brew day, may not be such a big deal.

 

[antiphile]

I dropped some DME and added a couple of hundred grams to make up for it so don't really know exactly how much I added but it was somewhere in the arena of 8kg total as opposed to the hoped for 8.3

I might have missed it in the recipe listing, but I only counted an ideal quantity of 7.3 kg DME (2.5 kg plus 4.8 kg).

 

[motman]

I might have missed it in the recipe listing, but I only counted an ideal quantity of 7.3 kg DME (2.5 kg plus 4.8 kg).

Ah, yep, that's just cos I can't count. I added 7 instead of 7.3.

 

[danestead]

Your addition of crystal contributed about 9% to the OG of your beer. This is starting to get up there a little bit and considering crystal in general will only attenuate half the amount of a base malt, it may have added 2 or 3 points to your FG.

Have you considered doing a forced ferment test on your DME. If you google 'forced ferment test' or if you have access to the 'Yeast' book, it details how to do it there. It will enable you to determine the fermentability of that particular DME.

Also, I notice a huge amount of people pay attention to a computer programs predicted FG. To predict a FG in a program is far too hard as there is many many variables like mash temp, fermentability of different grains like crystal, yeast strain, possibly yeast pitch rate if you pitched far too little for a higher gravity wort, yeast health in general, your process and how you handled your yeast. I don't use beersmith (or know what you use actually) however it'd be interesting for you to knock up a simple recipe of 100% base malt and compare what it's predicted FG is for a mash temp of 63deg vs 70deg. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if it predicted the same FG although in reality it is going to be quite different. Also, have a look at 100% crystal malt vs 100% base malt. I wonder if it adjusts the predicted FG there also?

What I'm trying to say is don't worry so much about comparing what the predicted FG is on a computer program. Use your previous batches and process to guess at what it might be. If you have limited previous batches, well this brew will add to your experience and help in the long run.

Finally, how does it taste? If its good, thats all that counts :chug: