Need Help = Og Of Foreign Stout

[redmactruck]

Just wondering if anyone has had this issue before??? I have just done my first foreign stout recipe from the "extreme brewing" book

Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast's Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home by Sam Calagione

The only real diffrence is that I added little more dark DME and added water to 21 L mark.

Fermentables in the recipe are as follows

4 kg dark DME (instead of 3.6 kg)
460 g light DME
Some steeped grains (85 g Carafa III and 125g Black Patent Malt) strike water 75 degrees C for 45 mintues

I plug these into "the brew recipator" (hbd.org) and BeerSmith and get a final OG of 1.080 ish. -- great !! that's what the recipe says too, BUT in my
infinite wisdom I pitched the yeast (Wyeast Irish Ale 1080) then took the OG and the reading was 1.160 (@22 degrees C)

Why would the SG be so high ?????

I thought the yeasts maybe, dodgy hydrometer maybe (but is reading 0.000 with plain tap water), hop pellet residual maybe.

The side of the wyeast package also says to pitch at no higher than 1.060 (doesn't fit the recipe but it's the suggested strain). ???

Any help in this area would be great

 

[felten]

You probably got some malt extract concentrated in the tap that threw out your reading, try discarding the first sample and taking another one.

As for not pitching above 1.060, a single wyeast packet isn't enough yeast for a higher gravity beer. You either need to look into making starters to increase the amount of yeast, or pitch 2 packets. http://www.wyeastlab.com/hb_pitchrates.cfm

 

[redmactruck]

Thanks for your reply, I need to do a little more home work next time !!!! I do not wish to throw this out nor do I want any off flavours. The recipe does not ask to use a yeast starter, it just says to pitch the yeast.

I do have on hand, some extra dry yeast packets out of some kits, still in date too

Morgans Golden Saaz Pilsner
Mangrove Jacks Czech Pilsner
Black Rock Whispering Wheat

*also I have an experiment on the go, culturing yeast out of Cooper's APA this is out to the second stage of feeding and there is a very good layer (approx 3-4 mm thick) on the bottom of the bottle

Would it be naive of me to even consider throwing one of these in?

 

[felten]

Hmm I'm not sure TBH, other members might have a better idea but I would probably take a fast ferment sample, see how far that attenuates and if the main brew doesn't get that low, then think about re-pitching with a rehydrated dry package.

You can definitely ferment with 2 strains if you want, for example, the flavour profile of one, but the higher attenuation of another, so that might work well in this case.