RetsamHsam
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 4/9/07
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OK, I brewed 30L of Doppelbock which came in at 1093 and no chilled it. When I checked the Mr.Malty calculator for pitching rates they suggested I use 54 packets of wyeast and 44L of starter (maybe that is abit of an exaggeration).
So instead of screwing around with (and wasting) all of the starter wort and buying 20 packets of Wyeast I thought I would brew a partial bock, ferment it, and then chuck the Doppel on the yeast cake. Problem was my efficiency came in way over target and instead of a Bock I ended up with yet another Doppelbock 28L @ 1.090.
I was planning on pitching a 2L starter at 10C however due to the gravity being much higher than expected, I decided to pitch @ 18C leave for 3 hours then bring down to ferment temp. Came back after three hours to adjust the temp and the bloody thing had started fermenting already. I got the temp down to 11C overnight, the gravity was down to about 1.082 in the morning.
After about 5 days I am down to 1.043 and I am thinking this beer will need a diacetyl rest. Most people say to do this 2/3's of the way through the ferment, does this still ring true for bigger lagers, i.e would it be too early to raise the temp at 1.043??
I had doubts about the SG as I was aiming for 1.072 and ended up with 1.090, however i thought back to the brew day. I poured about 10L of close to boiling wort into the fermenter and mixed the extract in with this then added the rest of the hot liquor/cold water, then wacked in in the fridge and bought the temp down to 18C, shook the fermenter, checked the gravity and pitched the yeast. Could it be possible that there was some un-dissolved extract skewing the gravity sample?
I read a post on AHB acouple of weeks ago stating if you have the final gravity and a refractometer reading of the finished beer you can work backwards to obtain the starting gravity/ABV. Is this possible? What is the formula?
So instead of screwing around with (and wasting) all of the starter wort and buying 20 packets of Wyeast I thought I would brew a partial bock, ferment it, and then chuck the Doppel on the yeast cake. Problem was my efficiency came in way over target and instead of a Bock I ended up with yet another Doppelbock 28L @ 1.090.
I was planning on pitching a 2L starter at 10C however due to the gravity being much higher than expected, I decided to pitch @ 18C leave for 3 hours then bring down to ferment temp. Came back after three hours to adjust the temp and the bloody thing had started fermenting already. I got the temp down to 11C overnight, the gravity was down to about 1.082 in the morning.
After about 5 days I am down to 1.043 and I am thinking this beer will need a diacetyl rest. Most people say to do this 2/3's of the way through the ferment, does this still ring true for bigger lagers, i.e would it be too early to raise the temp at 1.043??
I had doubts about the SG as I was aiming for 1.072 and ended up with 1.090, however i thought back to the brew day. I poured about 10L of close to boiling wort into the fermenter and mixed the extract in with this then added the rest of the hot liquor/cold water, then wacked in in the fridge and bought the temp down to 18C, shook the fermenter, checked the gravity and pitched the yeast. Could it be possible that there was some un-dissolved extract skewing the gravity sample?
I read a post on AHB acouple of weeks ago stating if you have the final gravity and a refractometer reading of the finished beer you can work backwards to obtain the starting gravity/ABV. Is this possible? What is the formula?
