Poor Attenuation

telemaster · 05-15-2009, 02:51 PM

Hi Folks,
I have read about, and experienced, extract brews having poor attenuation. Not so much as to render the beer undrinkable (if that's even possible), but enough that the beer isn't quite what it could be.

After four batches of being ~.008 off from the expected FG I was getting frustrated. I'm using rehydrated dry yeast (not Muntons). Before making the jump to liquid yeast and all grain brewing I decided to try yeast nutrient. The first batch using nutrient was bottled on Wednesday... and guess what? FG was spot on.

Anyone else experience this, or done anything similar brewing with extract?

slinn · 05-15-2009, 03:52 PM

My first three batches I made were with dry yeast, and I hit original and final gravity almost perfectly. However, my last two batches (which are both still in primary) I missed my original gravity for some reason. Both times my gravity was a little high, (recipe suggested 1.055, but ended up at 1.048 on one batch). I used liquid yeast on both of these, and the first batch has been in primary for almost four weeks, so I will be bottling this weekend. They attenuated as expected, again, a little higher than the recipe suggested, but since I started high, I expected to finish high as well.