First AG bottled, however....

I bottled my first AG brew last night, and when I checked my SG it dropped lower than it was estimated. My OG was 1046, and my FG came out to 1010, my estimated FG was 1014.

Why or what factors influenced this?

I understand mash temperatures may play the largest role in fermentability, but how about attenuation, is it possible that he yeast just had a higher attenuation for this ferentation?

I used WLP002, and their website shows an attenuation of 63-70%. According to my OG and FG that is 77% AT!

Even if my SG ended at 1013, I would have been at the top end of attenuation for this yeast.

What happened?

FWIW, this recipe was for an ordinary bitter, and I mashed at 148°F for 75 min, @ 1.25 qt/lb with a total grist of 8lb (6.5 lb marris otter, 1 lb victory, .5 lb of crystal 40, 90 minute boil.) I used a 1.5 liter starter and left in the primary for 3 weeks before racking straight to bottling last night. The smaple tasted decent, and didn't smell sour, and I had no airlock activity for about the past week (even htough I know this isn't a way to guage fermentation, the airlock stopped bubbling completely, and appeared fermentation was complete.)

Schnitzengiggle said:

I bottled my first AG brew last night, and when I checked my SG it dropped lower than it was estimated. My OG was 1046, and my FG came out to 1010, my estimated FG was 1014.

Why or what factors influenced this?

I understand mash temperatures may play the largest role in fermentability, but how about attenuation, is it possible that he yeast just had a higher attenuation for this ferentation?

I used WLP002, and their website shows an attenuation of 63-70%. According to my OG and FG that is 77% AT!

Even if my SG ended at 1013, I would have been at the top end of attenuation for this yeast.

What happened?

FWIW, this recipe was for an ordinary bitter, and I mashed at 148°F for 75 min, @ 1.25 qt/lb with a total grist of 8lb (6.5 lb marris otter, 1 lb victory, .5 lb of crystal 40, 90 minute boil.) I used a 1.5 liter starter and left in the primary for 3 weeks before racking straight to bottling last night. The smaple tasted decent, and didn't smell sour, and I had no airlock activity for about the past week (even htough I know this isn't a way to guage fermentation, the airlock stopped bubbling completely, and appeared fermentation was complete.)

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That has happened to me a couple times also, I just suppose the yeast were very happy on those occasions, I nailed all my temps perfectly, but for some reason the yeast just attenuated a bit more than usual, I wish I could provide a better answer, but thats all I can tell you, Im sure it will still be very good beer, a bit drier perhaps.

Schnitzengiggle said:

FWIW, this recipe was for an ordinary bitter, and I mashed at 148°F for 75 min, @ 1.25 qt/lb with a total grist of 8lb (6.5 lb marris otter, 1 lb victory, .5 lb of crystal 40, 90 minute boil.)

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I would say it's the low mashing temperature in combination with a healthy starter and favorable fermenting conditions. What temperature did you ferment at? I think the Wyeast attenuation range given is for a more typical (hotter) mash at average temperatures without a starter.

Every batch I've done so far has exceeded the attenuation estimates on the Wyeast page. My most recent batch was with some Wyeast 3711 which is rated at 77-83%. I mashed at 150 and got an OG of 1.048. It ended up at 1.002 which is an attenuation of 96%. That's fine by me since I like my beers pretty dry but if you're aiming for more maltiness, I would mash warmer.

EvilGnome6 said:

I would say it's the low mashing temperature in combination with a healthy starter and favorable fermenting conditions. What temperature did you ferment at? I think the Wyeast attenuation range given is for a more typical (hotter) mash at average temperatures without a starter.

Every batch I've done so far has exceeded the attenuation estimates on the Wyeast page. My most recent batch was with some Wyeast 3711 which is rated at 77-83%. I mashed at 150 and got an OG of 1.048. It ended up at 1.002 which is an attenuation of 96%. That's fine by me since I like my beers pretty dry but if you're aiming for more maltiness, I would mash warmer.

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I fermented at 67° for 3 weeks, it may have creeped up to 68° here or there due to my laziness and failing to swap out icewater bottles and check the temperature frequently, but I know it didn't go over, when I bottled yesterday and checked the temp for priming it was about 66°. I "swamp cooler" in a coleman xtreme and have found my temperatures don't fluctuate too much, I do wonder though, what the differential is in the fermenter during the most active part of fermentation compared to the temp of the surrounding water, I know water is a good buffer, better than ambient air, however, I do the best with what I have.

I don't mind a dry beer either, but I though that WLP002 was supposed to leave some residual sweetness, at 77% AT, I could have just used WLP001 Cali Ale ~80% AT, I had some of that in my fride, I bought a vial of WLP002 for this bitter solely for the purpose of keeping a maltier profile, oh well. I got 4 decent jars of washed yeast from it though, this strain was difficult to wash because it is a damn good flocculater, it all went strait to the bottom, didn't have that milky look to it in the jar like some of the previous washes I've done.

96% that is impressive, did it turn out real dry?

A 148 mashing temp will produce a much more fermentable wort. If you wanted a lower attenuation especially with that starting gravity, I would have gone at around 154.

The attenuation numbers for each yeast are not a hard rule. They are general, based on a standard wort that the yeast company uses. Give any yeast pure simple sugars and they will ferment to 100% attenuation. Use a ton of unfermentables, crystal malts, and other dextrins, and even a healty pitch of Cal Ale can go to only 70%. It's all a matter or wort composition.

EvilGnome6 said:

Every batch I've done so far has exceeded the attenuation estimates on the Wyeast page. My most recent batch was with some Wyeast 3711 which is rated at 77-83%. I mashed at 150 and got an OG of 1.048. It ended up at 1.002 which is an attenuation of 96%. That's fine by me since I like my beers pretty dry but if you're aiming for more maltiness, I would mash warmer.

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Unless you used some sugar in your recipe, I'd say that sounds more like you had an infection, than just yeast attenuation. I've never had an all-malt wort ferment over about 82%. Even belgian recipes that included several pounds of sugar have apparent attenuation figures around 85-90%.

Schnitzengiggle said:

I fermented at 67° for 3 weeks, it may have creeped up to 68° here or there due to my laziness and failing to swap out icewater bottles and check the temperature frequently, but I know it didn't go over, when I bottled yesterday and checked the temp for priming it was about 66°.

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Sounds like your temperature control wasn't the culprit here.

I don't mind a dry beer either, but I though that WLP002 was supposed to leave some residual sweetness, at 77% AT, I could have just used WLP001 Cali Ale ~80% AT, I had some of that in my fride, I bought a vial of WLP002 for this bitter solely for the purpose of keeping a maltier profile, oh well.

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I'd be curious to see the difference in attenuation rates between different strains vs. the attenuation rates due to different mash temperatures. I'm beginning to think that mash temperature will make a bigger difference.

96% that is impressive, did it turn out real dry?

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I just bottled it yesterday but when I tried a sample it was very dry. So far it tasted better than anything else has on bottling day so I'm pretty optimistic.

Brewsmith said:

Unless you used some sugar in your recipe, I'd say that sounds more like you had an infection, than just yeast attenuation. I've never had an all-malt wort ferment over about 82%. Even belgian recipes that included several pounds of sugar have apparent attenuation figures around 85-90%.

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No sign of infection. Check out this thread on Wyeast 3711. It's just a monster attenuator. You can see what others are getting with the same strain:

B-Dub: 1.058 to 1.006 in 8 days
philrose: 1.082 to 1.009 in 8 days
ChshreCat: 1.060 to 1.009 in 4 days
Tonedef131: 1.056 to 1.004 in 7 days
BobcatBrew: 1.068 to 1.004 in 3 days

You get the idea.

Hmmm... That kind of pokes a hole in my "it's mostly the mashing temperature" theory, though.

EvilGnome6 said:

No sign of infection. Check out this thread on Wyeast 3711. It's just a monster attenuator. You can see what others are getting with the same strain:

B-Dub: 1.058 to 1.006 in 8 days
philrose: 1.082 to 1.009 in 8 days
ChshreCat: 1.060 to 1.009 in 4 days
Tonedef131: 1.056 to 1.004 in 7 days
BobcatBrew: 1.068 to 1.004 in 3 days

You get the idea.

Hmmm... That kind of pokes a hole in my "it's mostly the mashing temperature" theory, though.

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Yeah, but I'd still like to see the grain bill of these recipes. Sugar is a common ingredient in a Saison, so that an attenuation of 90% is possible. It's part of the style. I still say 96% on an all-malt wort is suspect of:

1. Uncalibrated/broken hyrometer
2. Incorrect reading
3. Infection

Brewsmith said:

Yeah, but I'd still like to see the grain bill of these recipes. Sugar is a common ingredient in a Saison, so that an attenuation of 90% is possible. It's part of the style. I still say 96% on an all-malt wort is suspect of:

1. Uncalibrated/broken hyrometer
2. Incorrect reading
3. Infection

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Some of them (mine included) are all malt. Some have .5 to 1.5 lbs of sugar. Not sure what to tell you but if you do some searching around, there are quite a few people getting attenuation in the low to mid 90s with this yeast in all-grain batches.

Hey we're kind of along the same timeline here, my first AG was also an ordinary bitter and will be bottled next weekend (3 weeks in primary). My OG was a little higher than yours at 1.053 (better efficiency than I had planned for, I was expecting 1.048) and FG is 1.015, AA = 71%. I used Wyeast 1968, which I believe is the same as WLP002.

My mash temp was 154, and although a bit different recipes, it looks to me like the unfermentable content should be similar. My grain bill was:

8.5 lb MO
0.5 C120
0.5 Aromatic malt
0.25 special roast

Hydro sample last night tasted deliciously roasty malty, not to rub it in. I'm sure yours will be a tasty beer as is, but based on my tiny little bit of experience, I'd say a higher mash temp will make a difference.

2bluewagons said:

Hey we're kind of along the same timeline here, my first AG was also an ordinary bitter and will be bottled next weekend (3 weeks in primary). My OG was a little higher than yours at 1.053 (better efficiency than I had planned for, I was expecting 1.048) and FG is 1.015, AA = 71%. I used Wyeast 1968, which I believe is the same as WLP002.

My mash temp was 154, and although a bit different recipes, it looks to me like the unfermentable content should be similar. My grain bill was:

8.5 lb MO
0.5 C120
0.5 Aromatic malt
0.25 special roast

Hydro sample last night tasted deliciously roasty malty, not to rub it in. I'm sure yours will be a tasty beer as is, but based on my tiny little bit of experience, I'd say a higher mash temp will make a difference.

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This was my first AG attempt, and I thought it was mash temp, but I was using a recipe, and had to tweak it to get my percentages the same. I did want more of a light body, but I didn't know that it was going to be this light, regardless, I know what I need to do to this recipe to get it where I like it. I was shooting for a session beer, but my brewhouse efficiency was also higher than the 75% I had it set at without knowing better. I actually had an 80.8% efficiency with my first AG, so I at least know that my efficiency isn't 75%, although it can vary with different grainbills and batch sizes. If this brew is satisfactory, I will brew a 10 gallon batch next time and shoot for 154-155° mash temp to increase body and malt profile. I'm sure this beer will be great, just drier and thinner than expected. Still sessionable with 4.7%ABV!

Are you doing your calcs in Beersmith? As far as I can tell, Beersmith does not take mash temps into account when estimating the gravities. I hope I'm wrong here, and someone can show me how I am doing the calcs wrong!

Laughing_Gnome_Invisible said:

Are you doing your calcs in Beersmith? As far as I can tell, Beersmith does not take mash temps into account when estimating the gravities. I hope I'm wrong here, and someone can show me how I am doing the calcs wrong!

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I think you're right, because if I choose light, medium, or heavy body mash profiles, it doesnt change the calculations whatsoever. So maybe it just uses a default 154° (or similar) mash temp for the calcs.

Now that I think about it I don't use a mash out, I do try to raise the temperature of the mash up to about 170 when sparging, and I have a single pot/burner, so I have to collect my first and second runnings into a bucket and then after I dump my second (final) sparge into the MLT, I can start heating my wort in the pot, do you think that the wort collected in the bucket continues conversion until I get it on the stove and heating?

Schnitzengiggle said:

Now that I think about it I don't use a mash out, I do try to raise the temperature of the mash up to about 170 when sparging, and I have a single pot/burner, so I have to collect my first and second runnings into a bucket and then after I dump my second (final) sparge into the MLT, I can start heating my wort in the pot, do you think that the wort collected in the bucket continues conversion until I get it on the stove and heating?

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It's possible if you're not getting the grain bed and wort over 163. I actually mash out and sparge at 163 to let conversion continue until I start boiling (a tip I read in Brew Like a Monk).

EvilGnome6 said:

It's possible if you're not getting the grain bed and wort over 163. I actually mash out and sparge at 163 to let conversion continue until I start boiling (a tip I read in Brew Like a Monk).

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When I sparge I allow the grain bed to settle for about 5 minutes before I collect each running, so between the 5 minute settle time, the vorlauf, and 5+ minute drain time, it has to be about 15-20 minutes before I get my third sparge into the MLT, and my first and second runnings in the pot on the burner.

At what temperature are the enzymes denatured? 163°F? I've always heard the magic number of 170°F.

With this past AG attempt my mash was about 148 or so, so I sparged with 180-185° degree water to get the grist up to about 170°, so would I have stopped any further conversion from occuring at those temps?

It is my understanding that I would have stopped conversion at ~170°F

Schnitzengiggle said:

At what temperature are the enzymes denatured? 163°F? I've always heard the magic number of 170°F.

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Hmmm... Looks like 163F is the temperature where sugars need to be released from the malt and 170F is where they are denatured. That's probably where my confusion between the two number was.