Low Fg, Ways To Increase 5-6days Into Ferment

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black_labb

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I put down a brew thats basically an english pale ale of some sort. I used some recultured coopers yeast fermented at 18-19*C and just turned the heat belt on last night (pitched it sunday) which brought it up to 21-22 to help the yeast finish up. I just took a hydrometer sample and it is at 1007 and may well be still get a couple points down by the time its time to bottle it.

Basically It started higher than i wanted (didnt add as much sparge water so the volume was a bit under the usual 23L) and then fermented well under what I was expecting (was expecting around 1012-1015)

The recipe is below.

The flaked rice is white rice that I roasted (started in the oven then used the microwave as it seemed to be just as good but quicker). I hope it gives a nice nutty flavour.

The 15min addition of fuggles was in the cube
The 20min addition of fuggles and target were a hop tea when i noticed the beer was at 1058, higher than I expected. Partially to water it down a bit and partially to add more hops to balance it.
The crystal was some home made crystal (i mixed a couple varieties in this one, some dark, some med and a bit of light)

New Recipe


Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 21.0
Total Grain (kg): 5.000
Total Hops (g): 50.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.058 (P): 14.3
Colour (SRM): 8.4 (EBC): 16.5
Bitterness (IBU): 39.7 (Average)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 78
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
4.200 kg Pale Ale Malt (84%)
0.500 kg Flaked Rice (10%)
0.300 kg Crystal 60 (6%)

Hop Bill
----------------
20.0 g Target Pellet (11.5% Alpha) @ 75 Minutes (Boil) (1 g/L)
5.0 g Fuggles Pellet (4.5% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil) (0.2 g/L)
5.0 g Target Pellet (11.5% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil) (0.2 g/L)
20.0 g Fuggles Pellet (4.5% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (1 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------

Single step Infusion at 66C for 60 Minutes.
Fermented at 20C with Coopers


Recipe Generated with BrewMate


I wasnt expecting the beer to get down so low, but i guess the coopers yeast is a bit of a machine and the rice is probably pretty fermetable dispite the roasting. The mash temp was 66* (63-64 by the end of the hour) and the crystal I used should have kept the fg a bit higher I thought. It is a bit too bitter as i wanted a fairly well balanced beer.

How can I increase FG a bit when the ferment is nearly over? Would adding some steeped crystal help it out? It was meant to be something like an esb but still farly light for the summer. Would light crystal work reasonably well for this or should I use more of the med-dark crystal?

any other suitable methods?

I'm considering adding a fair bit and making it an english IPA (more hops and more crystal) but i'm also considering just more crystal.
 
Personally I would sample and enjoy it as is.

But if you are certain on raising your FG, you will need more unfermentables in there, so yes some cold steeped crystal malt would help, I recently steeped some darker crushed spec malts overnight in cold water and poured the liquid straight into the fermentor with no issues.

Sample it first though, it could well be a cracker as is.

Next time increase your mash temp to say 67 or 68, it may help with a higher FG in your brew.
 
low mash temp the coopers yeast, I recently did the andrewqld pale clone and it got down to 1.007, great yeast love it :beerbang:

Not sure if i would try and add anything at this stage, but I'm sure you will get a few options.

Good luck, the beer sounds like it could be a winner!
 
Bob, I dont want to mash lower as I'm already getting a beer thats a bit too thin.

I've been sampling it as is. While the hopping is quite smooth it does overpower most other flavours. Also i find that once a beer is carbed up the bitterness comes out even stronger. Currently it presents like a fairly thin bodied english IPA. It's the thinness that I'd like to amend.

The gladwrap is puffed up again in the 2 hours since getting the sample so I believe its still fermenting a bit (though it could be co2 coming out of solution, but considering its been 4.5 days since being pitched and it still has alot of yeast suspended in the beer I think it may be still going a bit).

I'm thinking I'll add say 200g of crystal, 100light and 100med. Probably in line with an esb once finished.

I have a bottle of Timothy Taylor's landlord that i bought to try as i may do a batch of doc's clone recipe. I'll have that and assume that doc's recipe is right to try and compare.

At the moment it should be sitting on around 6.2% and 6.7ish once bottled. That is assuming i diluted the 21L of 1058 sg down to 1053 with 2L, and i think i probably only added 1.5 or so.
I was thinking that this beer could be a lower alcohol beer for summer and then brew an IPA after, but I'm thinking this is going to be easier to make into an IPA than a Bitter/pale ale. I'll probably add the crystal and boil it up with a bit more hops for an english ipa, and do the session beer next.

Oh well, you learn as you go. Rice= very fermentable. Next time I'll up the SG if doing the recipe.
 
ok, An ipa it will be. I'm boiling up the results of a minimash of 380g mixed crystal and 120g pale ale. I added the pale ale as one of the batches of crystal I made didnt have long to soak so some of the specific grains probably didnt have the starch converted to sugars so i thought I might as well add a bit of pale incase that is the case.

I've been boiling it a bit to reduce it and I've added 10G of fuggles and 5 of target to make some hop/crystal tea to add to the ferment. the fuggles and the target will boil for 20mins.
 
Couldnt resist and cracked a bottle of the resulting beer. it was a bit flat and a bit sweeter than it will be due to some unfermented priming sugar, but i think this mess of a beer has turned out nicely. I really like the smokey flavour from the fuggles. The extra crystal I added didnt up the gravity any but it made it fuller feeling/tasting.

I pitched another beer onto the yeastcake which fermented out to 1008 in 24hrs... coopers yeast is a monster. The other beer is the bitter i planned on and was mashed at 67-68* with no rice and 400g of crystal and 300g of munich. Coopers yeast is great to turn beers around quickly.
 
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