So, I received the Block Party Amber beer kit with a purchase of mine and Amber is a bit dull, so I made some additions to it and plan on adding some chocolate/chili flavors. In the process, my OG turned out to be 29.4 brix (1.1263). The airlock stopped bubbling after about two days, which I didn’t think anything of because it could just be the seal on the lid that is allowing gas to escape or something like that.
BUT THEN. I found mrmalty.com… basically its a calculator for how much yeast should be used depending on the OG. The Amber kit came with one 6gram package, but apparently I should have used about 3.8 packages for this beer. Does anyone have experience with this and know how accurate that calculator is? If so, I need more yeast pronto.
How much additional sugar did you add to the recipe? That’s a really high OG, so I’d be suspicious of wort stratification with that measurement. It’s tough to really mix in concentrated extract, and the heavier layer can sink to the bottom. If this is where you grabbed your measurement, you can easily over-estimate your OG.
If you added a ton of sugar, well, that’s probably another issue. Not all strains can attenuate wort of that high gravity.
I agree with @porkchop You would have to add a lot of fermentables to get to that high a gravity. Might want to run all of your ingredients through a recipe calculator to see what comes up for an original gravity.
Another gravity reading might be a good idea also.
That’s up there. Going to be a hell off a block party. Yeah you under pitched it . Like @porkchop said we need more information
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Hey Guys,
So basically with the initial recipe all I did was add an extra pound of malt for a chocolate profile, and I plan on adding cacao nibs /vodka sanitized chili peppers in the secondary.
I took the OG with a dropper right as I chilled the wort and transferred it to the fermenter so everything should have been mixed well. I was just about to get 3 more packets of Muntons Ale Dry Yeast, the original strain that came with the kit. Any concerns or insight on that?
What was your volume in the fermentor
Derp, that should have been obvious for me to mention. Sorry about that.
It is a 5 gallon batch.
Last time I made a beer of 1.127 gravity, it took 28# of base malt and I had to boil it for 4 hours to concentrate it enough to get that high. It’s really really hard to mix the top-up water with the concentrated wort, assuming you did a partial boil. An extra pound of malt in that recipe can’t get you anywhere close to that gravity.
Iiiinteresting… Well, unfortunately I’m at work so I can’t jump at the fermenter as much as I want to so I can get to the bottom of this… and also check and double check the calibration on my refractometer.
I really appreciate everyone’s help and insight. As soon as I get more information I’ll come back to this 
FYI: not all packets of dry yeast are the same size. Some of the Muntons are 6 g, most other manufacturers packets are typically 11 g or 11.5 g.
One extra pound of DME would only add 44 points or so (1.044) per gallon. So if I did the math right 8.8 points for 5 gallons only would raise the OG to about 1.053. Something must be off with the measurement. I would just take another one to see if it just fermented out.
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Thats real high the og grav. How many gal did you brew. Way to much fermentabels. You did use.me did one last year. Did look at my notes. Had a grav of 1 065
The online instructions for Block Party Amber use a partial boil.
6 lb of LME + 1 lb DME = 260 GPs.
260 GPs in 2.5 gal water → SG of 1.104
260 GPs in 2.0 gal water → SG of 1.130
Was the SG measurement taken after wort was chilled but before it was ‘topped off’ to five gallons?
IF it truly is that BIG, your party will be over before it begins! Small batch has it right there… Sneezles61
@sneezles61 @brew_cat @porkchop
Sorry for the delay, life has been crazy and haven’t been able to get back to this. I did however get to the beer. I’m not too sure if the original reading was correct. I tested it on Sunday and the reading was only 6brix, but thats after I threw in another 11g of yeast to try and cover myself.
I also taste tested everything before moving it over to the secondary fermenter and I’m sure the ABV is not what the original reading would have implied, but its pretty damn high. Also on a good note, the extra yeast didn’t add any unwanted flavors so we’re good on that end. If there is still a chance to have an off flavor from the yeast, its going to definitely be masked by the cacao nibs and assortment of hot peppers I’m dry hopping.
You probably won’t have a problem with the yeast esters but you may get an alcohol taste. With all the spices you won’t notice any flaws.
You have to correct your refractometer measurement for the presence of alcohol, as it will skew the reading and be artificially high. Assuming your OG was ~1.053, your 6°brix reading gives you a final gravity of 1.007. The yeast did its job, and quite well! That’s a fairly low terminal gravity, but not low enough to indicate an infection.
When you bottle, you can grab a hydrometer measurement and a brix measurement, and use them to back-calculate your original gravity.
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I don’t doubt the alcohol taste, but I’m not worried about it. I also added all the vodka I used to sanitize the roaster hot pepper mixture I made and the cacao nibs so my expectations is for it all to even out.
Btw, I strongly recommend using hot peppers in your beer. I oven roasted them right before I puree’d and add them to the secondary. You can taste a smokey flavor right before the heat burns your tongue
Can you please tell me which app that is? It would be a lot more convenient than googling a brix to OG calculator each time haha.
Again, thank you to everyone for your input. Everyone’s opinion/input is appreciated and excitedly utilized.
That’s RefracTool, but not the most useful beyond the nice graphic. BeerSmith mobile app has one in it, and that’s my go-to app for brewing. Very useful, and I’d highly recommend it.
