Malt Not Fully Fermented?

[elollerenshaw]

I recently made an extract brew using all malt (no sucrose or dextrose) which looked good on paper but didn't turn out well.
It tasted too sweet, with no head, tasted like soft drink , and definitely not like beer!

My guess is that for some reason the malt didn't fully ferment. Can anyone explain?

I used 3kg of malt & steeped 250g of grain, 25g of hops boiled for 60 min, & 25g of more hops boiled for 30 min.
Used safale US-05 yeast.

Malt was 1.5kg light dried malt, 1.5 kg light liquid malt, 250g crystal grain. Recently was misleading, it's been months.
Sorry don't measure OG & FG because I wouldn't respond to the measurements anyway.
Thanks for the replies & solutions.

 

[kelbygreen]

putting in your OG and FG would make it easier to determine what went wrong. What malt did you use?? was it bantini??

 

[manticle]

Something to do with the free amino nitrogen levels from memory - malt extract will often attenuate less well than either kit and kilo or all grain brews as the FAN helps the yeast out.

Can't give you the exact science but my understanding is that essentially the extracting process results in less nutrients for the yeast.

Solutions for next time:

1. Make sure you pitch enough healthy yeast.
2. Use some quality yeast nutrient.
3. Sub a bit of the malt for some dex or sugar.
4. Use higher alpha acid hops or up the hopping level to balance the sweetness.

Also worth checkking if the brew was actually finished. What was the final gravity and are you sure that was all that the yeast could do?

Also carbonation will change the balance a bit. Are the bottles properly carbed? (presuming it's in bottles) as the priming sugar will also add sweetness until the yeast do their thing

 

[hoppy2B]

'recently made'

Give it a few weeks and see if the flavour improves.

 

[hoppy2B]

Next time tell us what malt you used. <_<

 

[Amber Fluid]

Not taking a gravity reading and you end up with questions like this. Maybe you learn by your mistake and take readings next time so at least you have an idea of what is going on with your brews.

One of the more basic and important things imo is taking readings as there is so much that can be analyzed in case something doesn't go to plan.

 

[manticle]

Sorry don't measure OG & FG because I wouldn't respond to the measurements anyway.

This bit was edited in after my earlier response. I'm not quite sure what it means but if you didn't measure gravity, how did you know fermentation was finished and have you bottled?

What do you mean you wouldn't respond to the measurements?

 

[pk.sax]

An English speaking Yasmani?

 

[bum]

I wouldn't respond to the measurements anyway.

Good luck to anyone wanting to help this brick wall.

 

[hoppy2B]

It's got no head! :lol:

 

[elollerenshaw]

This bit was edited in after my earlier response. I'm not quite sure what it means but if you didn't measure gravity, how did you know fermentation was finished and have you bottled?

What do you mean you wouldn't respond to the measurements?

Yes OK point taken. I walked right into that caning!

What I meant was up until "recently" I have got away without taking measurements, by observing what stage the brew is at, and leaving it a few days longer if I was unsure if fermentation had finished. On this one, it caught up with me.

I am interested to know what you can do if after 2 wks of primary ferment & no activity the gravity is still too high? (for a std temp yeast).

On taking measurements, has anyone checked that the gravity is uniform throughout the fermenter? i.e. is it different if taken from the top vs the bottom?

 

[hoppy2B]

Your description is pretty vague.
We don't know the volume of this brew. Is it possible there is too much fermentables for the volume and the yeast died? Did it end up in a keg or something. If you bottled did it carbonate? If it went into bottles with a lot of sugars unfermented you would have ended up with bottle bombs.
The lack of head may indicate lack of carbonation.