I am looking for direction and pointers. For some background I have listed my first 3 brews and then a detailed explanation of my 4th brew with questions:
1st brew was the Caribou Slobber extract kit. This turned out WAY TOO sweet. I believe this is due to boiling too aggressively and pitching the yeast at too high of a temp. My neighbor likes it so it wasn’t a total loss. I did not get a starting gravity on this batch as my hydrometer broke the first time I tried to use it.
2nd brew was American Icon extract kit. This one turned out OK but I am not sure what it was supposed to turn out to be, got it free with a purchase. I would describe it as a White IPA but with less hops. I did not get a starting gravity on this batch either but it’s totally drinkable. Hurray, I made beer that I would drink!
3rd brew was a German Alt Ale extract kit. The OG should have been 1.052 but came in at 1.048, not sure why I missed the OG. This one is still fermenting at 62 degrees and I am hopeful!
4th batch was brewed yesterday and has created quite a few questions. I brewed the Off The Topper extract kit and used Vermont Ale Yeast “The Yeast Bay”. This was my first time using liquid yeast.
I built a stir plate from a PC fan like the ones you see on the million youtube videos and put the yeast starter together at 7p on Sat night using Fast Pitch. I now understand where the term “caked on” comes from as I had to dig out the yeast of the vile with a sanitized butter knife. The room temp was about 62 degrees and Erlenmeyer flask was on the stir plate till 11p-ish when it was unplugged, my son thought it should be turned off before he went to bed. I put it back on in the morning around 7a and it went till about 7p, all the while the room temp was in the low to mid 60s.
The brewing it’s self went well with the exception of the last 15 mins. It took the wort 10-15 mins to return to boil after adding the 45 min malt extract and I didn’t count this time in the 60 min cook time which added time to the brew. I wonder what kind of effect the additional 10-15 mins (was not boiling) had on the brew.
After the flame out additions the wort cooled down to 180 quickly for the late addition of hops to steep for 15 mins. After that I retuned it to the ice water bath in the sink but it seemed to take quite a while to cool down to 80 degrees. Once it got down to 80 degrees I poured it into the 6 gal carboy with 2 gallons of room temperature water. The directions said to fill up to 6 gallons but I took a gravity reading once the total volume was at 5 gallons (maybe 4-1/2 after some evaporated during the boil) and it came in at 1.065. Now this is where I failed at simple math because my target OG was 1.070 and I thought it was a good idea to add another half gallon of water based on the instructions. I know… I know. This put my starting gravity at 1.060, well below my target.
But wait, it gets better…
I missed the optimum temp of 70 degrees after adding cold water to the wort and pitched the yeast around 60-62 degrees. This morning the Carboy shows a temp of 68 degrees and there is a thin layer of kreuzen on top.
I think the two biggest issues to address are hitting target OG and temperature for both the yeast starter and the fermentation stage.
I think the temperature issue is pretty easy to address, I will turn on the heat.
I would love to understand what I am doing incorrectly to miss my OG by so much. I was supposed to add another half to whole gallon of water which would have brought my OG down even further.
Any feedback or guidance to get better results would be appreciated and well received.
Thanks!
Bobby