Extract brew taste and gravity question

Northern Brewer General
1

Hello,

I am making the NB Smashing Pumpkin Ale and I have a taste and gravity question.

on brew day I followed the instructions with the addition of a mini-mash (3gal of water, 64oz of pumpkin puree, specialty grains, and 3lbs of 6-row, 152 degrees for 1 hour) added this to boil kettle and topped off at 6.5 gal for a full boil.

OG was at 1.058 @ 68 degrees
Pitched a 2000ML starter
Fermentation took off like crazy…
After 19 days I transferred to 2nd carboy
Gravity was 1.031 @ 68 degrees
Taste is on the bitter side, strong spice smell
After 16 days in the secondary the gravity is 1.032 (could have miss read it earlier) still bitter/sour taste but the spice smell is right on…

Should I let the beer sit in the secondary longer? I thought the gravity should be lower then it is right now.

The kit called for 1oz of Cluster hops @ 60min so I wasn’t expecting a bitter taste. is the bitter taste a indication of the hops or something else? – I know this is subjective but it does taste different than my other beers…

Thanks
Don C.

2

if you think you miss read it. take another reading. It should definitely be lower than that.

as for the taste, it sounds like you might be tasting astringency. how ‘sour’ is it?

3

I have checked it again, and this time I recorded both the Gravity and the Brix using a fractormeter. both readings convert to each other.
8% brix
1.032 gravity.

repeated tastings and smelling I can pickup the pumpkin spices so I wonder if that is the “bitter/sour” taste that I am getting. its not like a lemon and there is a hoppy bite on the back of the tongue.

When will we have smell-o-vision and taste-o-vision? LOL…

Thanks
Don C.

4

Are you using any conversion utility for the post fermentation refractometer readings? I typically only use my refractometer when boiling…much simpler to measure fermented beer with a hygrometer, imho…

Assuming an original brix of ~14.2 or so and an ending of 8, a couple calculators predict the FG to actually be 1.015. alcohol tend to skew the direct readings from the refractometer

http://www.northernbrewer.com/refractometer-calculator/ http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml
5

[quote=“dsidab81”]Are you using any conversion utility for the post fermentation refractometer readings? I typically only use my refractometer when boiling…much simpler to measure fermented beer with a hygrometer, imho…
[/quote]

Probably better to use a hydrometer :cheers: (we know that’s what was meant, just being funny)

6

yep, that’s exactly what I meant!!! I blame it on the cell phone :oops:

7

Thank you, I didn’t know that the refractometer was affected by the alcohol in the fermentation process… good to know that I still need the hydrometers… :slight_smile:

thanks
Don C.