Hi all,
Brewed a honey IPA on the 19th. Used Denny’s fav 50.
Per my spreadsheet calc, final gravity s/b about 1.016. My reading just a moment ago was 1.008.
I’m was figureing I could probably keg it up this weekend if my numbers were in that range. I was real surprised by that number since its only been 11 days.
My starter must have been a doozie!
Any reason I shouldnt rack to the keg tonorrow eve? btw…it smells sooo good! Centennial, cascade and citra!
You can keg as soon as your hydrometer reading confirms that fermentation is complete.
Not necessarily.
A beer could hit terminal in 2 days but needs to rest on the cake for a few days for VDK cleanup.
If the beer just hit terminal at 11 days that was a ferment on the slower side if an ale and I would leave on the cake at least 2-4 more days before transferring off the yeast cake and it cant hurt to let the temp freerise towards 70f to accelerate teh VDK removal process. If not in an extreme hurry a good rule of thumb for a majority of ales is 4-7 days for primary and 4-7 days for VDK depending on many factors including strain/ starter/ beer type etc…most importantly what time it took to hit terminal SG is going to be your timetable for each beer.
For most simple ales its wise to simply give an average of 14 days in primary before kegging, otherwise you can leave permanent VDK faults if your rushing the schedule. A few VDK of mention are Diacetyl/ Acetaldehyde etc… in the finished beer then if rushed.
Here is a quick article that details some basics of what I am saying and note the last sentence highlighted in blue:
Diacetyl or vicinal diketone (two C=O groups, side-by-side) is a natural byproduct of beer fermentation. It is produced from alpha-acetolactate, which is an intermediate product in the biosynthesis of valine. The conversion of alfa-acelolactat to diacetyl is a normal chemical reaction and is carried out outside the cell wall in the beer.
How diacetyl formation in beer?
Diacetyl is produced by the yeast metabolism during beer fermentation by following steps below:
What does diacetyle flavor looks like?
Diacetyl occurs naturally in alcoholic beverages and is added to some foods to impart a buttery flavor. It is very important ingredients in the beer aroma, especially for dark beer and red wine. In lager beer diacetyl flavour is normally considered as an off-flavour.
Threshold value for diacetyl is approximately. 0.12-0.15 ppm.
[color=#000080]Removal
At the end of beer fermentation diacetyl will be removed from beer by living yeast cells.
The removal rate depends on beer temperature; it is faster with high beer temperature.[/color]
Interesting info!
That was my first FG reading on this batch so I was going assume it’s “done” simply based on the 1.008 number.
Considering it was even lower the calc’d FG for the yeast strain used in my brew, I was curious if it could be assumed to good to go even though it was really on the young side.
I suppose it wont kill me to let 'er go another few days!
Although the specific yeast strain, how much you pitch, and health of the yeast are all huge factors in attenuation, your mashing procedure (time, temp, etc) and grist make up are the biggest factors that contribute to a higher or lower attenuation.
