I know that this has been discussed before, but I cannot find any post that talks about my situation. I have brewed two beers in the last month and both of them have ended with a high FG. My first beer had an OG of 1042 - perfect and the FG was 1020 – it was at this for 2 days, so I figured it was done. The last FG was read after 16 days in primary, so I moved it to secondary. I neglected to take another reading before I cold crashed it. The beer tastes great, but I am wondering why the attenuation was only 54%.
I brewed a different beer 2 weeks ago and again my OG was perfect at 1045. It fermented like crazy for a week adn now 2 weeks later the gravity reading is 1024 - this time the attentuation is only 48%. I have not moved it to secondary yet, so I am wondering if there is something I should do to get the gravity reading lower.
My ambient temp is steady in my basement at 56 - 58 degrees and the yeasts mentioned a temp range of 58 - 68, so I should be fine there.
I know that it does not really matter - as long as the beer tastes good, but I am an analytical geek and it is bugging me. I brewed beer in the summer and fall and the FG was perfect in those batches, so I wonder if the temp has anything to do with it.
I have read in some places that I should gently stir up the wort - - does that sound right?
The first beer was the Dry Irish Stout and I used the Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale and the second beer was the California Common and I used the Wyeast 2112 California Lager.
Should I move it to a warmer place now for a day and see if that gets it going again?
Moving it to a warmer temp may help it out. Twisting the bucket to rouse the yeast back into suspension may help.
How are you aerating your wort before pitching? Are you doing yeast strarters? They shouldn’t be necessary for low OG beers like that, but are good practice.
You may want to have your beer ferment at a little higher temp. You are definitely on the low side. After 3-5 days, getting it to the high end of the yeast temp range helps, too.
That’s on the cool side for just about any ale yeast. Notty goes down into the 50s, German ale yeasts do, but you might want to take it up a few more degrees. Try to get it up over 65 for a few days before you repitch. Otherwise, from what I’ve heard (I’ve only done one extract batch), you might have to add some sugar to get the gravity down much lower than that
Like Nighthawk said Most of my extract brews finish around the 1.020 -1.022 range when pitching dry yeast. I ferment around 62 degrees. I always get the same result whether I just pitch dry yeast or rehydrate my dry yeast. Pitching a nice healthy yeast starter always seems to help me reach my target FG. It’s worth spending the extra $$ for liquid yeast. I’m not a big fan of dry yeast
I believe that my refractometer is working correctly. I tested it with water and it shows right at 1.000 plus the OG is always right on.
I do not know if I have a part of the house where I can get it warmer, I thought the main level would be warmer than 60 since we keep the thermostat at 66, but the ambient temp on the floor seems to stay at 60.
I used a liquid yeast - always have, but perhaps I need to do the starters in the winter. Would it do me any good to pitch another pack?
Refractometers are meant to measure sugar, they don’t work correctly in the presence of alcohol. But if you know what the starting gravity was, you can use an equation to correct for this.
A neat trick you can do with refractometers is that if you don’t know what the OG was, (such as on a commercial beer, or you forgot to take it) if you measure FG with a hydrometer, and also take a refractometer reading, you can calculate alcohol, and thus back out what OG must have been.
Oooh - that sounds new to me, I do not know anything about that. Please tell me more.[/quote]
I did ask you 3 days ago if you hydrometer was reading correctly. :oops: Knowing that you were using a refractometer at that time could have fixed the problem then.
[quote=“Nate42”]Refractometers are meant to measure sugar, they don’t work correctly in the presence of alcohol. But if you know what the starting gravity was, you can use an equation to correct for this.
A neat trick you can do with refractometers is that if you don’t know what the OG was, (such as on a commercial beer, or you forgot to take it) if you measure FG with a hydrometer, and also take a refractometer reading, you can calculate alcohol, and thus back out what OG must have been.[/quote]
Thank you Nate - that is cool - I am a math geek, so I love the formula. I have been thinking about getting BeerSmith and if it does this for you, that is another plus.
Thank you for posting this. It has really helped me out. I was feeling kind of bummed that my FG readings were so high. After using this calculator I realized my last two brews were spot on.
:mrgreen:
:cheers:
