Poor Attenuation

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Neill

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So lets say you have a brew that starts at 1047 and only gets to 1018. Attenuation is 61%, not so flash really. What sort of flavours will this impart to the brew compared to an identicle brew with attenuation of 75% or so? More maltiness, more sweetness?
 
residual sweetness

yeast?
 
So lets say you have a brew that starts at 1047 and only gets to 1018. Attenuation is 61%, not so flash really. What sort of flavours will this impart to the brew compared to an identicle brew with attenuation of 75% or so? More maltiness, more sweetness?

You got it. Depending on the yeast and how much you pitched. If you pitched the correct amount then a yeast that attenuates 60% would have a bigger sweeter profile (not really malty) than a yeast that attenuated 75%.
Dont even get me started with dry enzyme.
Just choose a yeast that suits the beer profile and dont worry too much about attenuation, if u pitch the correct amount in the correct conditions it should do what it was designed to do.......................make BEER.

STEVE
 
You got it. Depending on the yeast and how much you pitched. If you pitched the correct amount then a yeast that attenuates 60% would have a bigger sweeter profile (not really malty) than a yeast that attenuated 75%.
Dont even get me started with dry enzyme.
Just choose a yeast that suits the beer profile and dont worry too much about attenuation, if u pitch the correct amount in the correct conditions it should do what it was designed to do.......................make BEER.

STEVE

+1

Firstly how fermentable was the wort, it could be low attenuation or fully attenuated wort including non-fermentables that tests at 1.018

Screwy
 
recipe was a can of goo (blue mountain lager) and 1.5kg LME with 500g DME added to get it to 1047. plenty of fermentables i would have thought. yeast was 2x kit yeasts pitched dry. took off like a rocket then died in the ass after 3 days, never got past 1018 despite all my efforts to the contrary.

tastes reasonable at the moment, just wondering what the difference in taste would be, all else being equal
 
actually - not as many fermentables as you might think.

Those cans of goo - are designed to be used with roughly a kilo of plain old sugar. Plain old sugar is 100% nothing left fermentable. And if you want to have body and mouthfeel in your beer, you need some stuff left that isn't water or alcohol.

SO ... the cans of goo deliberately have enough unfermentable stuff in them to make up the difference for 23L of beer. The lions share of the alcohol coming from sugar, everything else from the tin.

Now, you didn't put in any sugar - you put in 2kg of of malt extract - which has its own compliment of unfermentable stuff - so you have stacked a bunch of extra "leftovers" on top of what would otherwise have been there.

I have no idea whether there would be enough to make you 1.018 FG a reasonable thing to expect or not .. but I would expect it to be much higher in FG than the kit + sugar would give.

It would be lighter in body, and probably less sweet and will seem less bitter. Less about taste than the overall flavour experience of taste, aroma, mouthfeel, finish. A beer with a high FG is usually less "drinkable" than a dryer beer
 
actually that makes a lot of sense, thanks mate.

the only thing is that i know lots of people who put down very similar recipes with (for example) 3kg of LME and no extra sugars which attenuate just fine and end up around 1008 FG, so i'm still thinking something went wrong with this batch. lazy yeast would be my suspects.
 
Personally I'd be more confused about the low OG, you'r FG looks a couple of points high but not too much to be concerned about. I would have thought you OG would have been around the 1055 mark (assuming you made a 23 litre batch), and FG near 1015.
 
Hey Niell,

Homebrewer79 put me onto this calculator a while back and I have found it spot on at predicting OG and FG for kits and bits brews.
In fact the last 4 brews I have done have been identical to their predictions.

http://www.liquorcraft.com.au/wa.asp?idWeb...p;idDetails=107

Just type in (in kgs) the amounts your using.
It also gives you a good sum up of what different FG's will leave your beer like.

I have found this invaluable.

Good luck

Marlow
 
my 1st beer only got down to 1020.

it was only topped up to 18 litres instead of 23...

it was a draught kit with amber malt extract + corn syrup & extra hops & grain malt enhancer

it's been bottled for almost 2 weeks (friday) & hasn't exploded yet :eek:

would any of these factors made it so high? 1020?

i checked it over 2 days with no changes.
 
yeah mate she was a 26 litre batch, that's why i added more DME to get the OG right without imparting too many unwanted flavours.

thanks for the link marlow, i'll have a look now
 
my 1st beer only got down to 1020.

it was only topped up to 18 litres instead of 23...

it was a draught kit with amber malt extract + corn syrup & extra hops & grain malt enhancer

it's been bottled for almost 2 weeks (friday) & hasn't exploded yet :eek:

would any of these factors made it so high? 1020?

i checked it over 2 days with no changes.
This is unfermentable so depending on how much...
 
This is unfermentable so depending on how much...



Just used the brewcraft sg estimator & it should be at least this.

One thing is for sure! My ale is gonna be HEAVY!

Hopefully it doesn't taste
half bad too....
 
the 3kg of extract would probably do without the addition of the Kit, Its surprising the OG didn't read higher. Also the yeast that comes with alot of kits isn't often the greatest, It usually ferments simple sugars (sucrose, dextrose) Pretty well, but not usually so well for all malt worts.

I recently did an old ale that didnt attenuate properly (it had a very high og so i probably shoulda pitched a bigger starter) and finished very high (around 1.035 from memory!) a couple of months later and its turning out quite drinkable, will make a good hearty winter warmer, so you never know your luck, Could be a winner! :beer:

Edit, Just read the batch size, 3kg and the kit sounds right for the OG. Look to the yeast!!
 
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