The biggest thing we’ll do is continue to focus on is hitting our mash temp. Higher mash temps extract more unfermentables, which will give the beer more body. This is not a bad thing if you plan for it. We didn’t and got burned (no pun intended) by having such a high dough-in temp. In the past, we’ve missed our OG by missing our mash temps low and now we’ve seen what happens when we miss our mash temps high. I wouldn’t know anything about anything without learning from mistakes…
Bottom line is we’re expecting our beer to look like mud (as shown in the picture I posted), but taste pretty good. We’ll be cold crashing and adding gelatin to try and clarify before bottling.
I would be pretty careful about bottling something that went from 1.065 to only 1.030. You could end up with some severe bottle bombs if it is a stuck fermentation that decides to start back up.
I would probably pitch a little more yeast and give it another week or two to be 100% sure
Noted. We are well versed in bottle bombs–had them with a wheat beer that had an FG of 1.014. With that said, from the reading we’ve done, we (at this point) are comfortable with the notion that the FG is not representative of the amount of fermentation that occurred, and we believe that fermentation completed. We pitched considerably more yeast compared to the last time we brewed this exact same recipe (two-step starter vs. one step). In the end, we racked to secondary last night, will let that sit for a few weeks, cold crash, add gelatin, and bottle. Could be an explosive holiday season…
So, I let the beer cold crash in secondary for three weeks averaging around 36F; only the first inch cleared. Then, I added a full Knox gelatin packet and let it sit for a another week; this cleared the top half. Finally, I added another full Knox packet and let it sit for another week; this finished the clearing process. Because I bottle condition, I was concerned the gelatin had stripped all of yeast (and flavor) out of the beer and it wouldn’t carbonate. Not a problem. Below is a picture of the finished product. Overall, I’d say this beer was quite the science experiment and is pretty damn tasty. Next time, I’ll get the mash temp right and avoid this problem. :oops:
It makes sense unconverted starches are what’s causing the haze because pitching more yeast did not lower the gravity. I didn’t know an iodine test existed.
More importantly, if they are unconverted starches, how exactly did I end up with them? That is, what can I do differently to prevent that from happening again?
Sorry, but I have a similar problem (extremely cloudy almost milky looking) with a Pliny clone from Northern Brewer and extracted some great tips from this thread. Anybody know the answer to the question prior to my post?
Were the starches unconverted because the temp was too high? or because he didn’t mash long enough?
I’m thinking I probably did the same thing and am hoping I didnt ruin the batch. Hopefully won’t have to resort to the gelatin.
