MasterWan

Recipes 

What do I do if a batch turns out, in my opinion to be too sweet? It has been 7 weeks since brewday. I did 2 weeks in primary, and 4 in secondary, then kegged it and put it under pressure in the kegerator. My first impression is that it is quite sweet. The OG was .105 and the FG is .1011, so there is not much left to turn to alcohol in there. If I just let it sit 3 or 4 weeks will the sweetness diminish any more?

Thanks
Wan

Yooper

Recipes 

It probably won't get any less sweet. A beer that's too sweet, but finished at 1.011 is more than likely underhopped. Beer is all about balance- the hops provide bitterness to balance the sweet malt. If the boil volume was lower than the recipe suggested, more hops could have been used to make up for it. This sounds like a recipe design problem, not a fermentation issue. What was the recipe?

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MasterWan

Recipes 

here's the link to the kit list.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/beerkits/PhatTyre.pdf

RedGlass

Recipes 

Did you control fermentation temp? You might be tasting fruity esters if it fermented too warm.

MasterWan

Recipes 

I just kept the primary and the secondary in a room that is consistantly about 69 or 70 degrees, no higher. That should be fine for an ale right?

RedGlass

Recipes 

I would think so. Were you using the wyeast belgian described in the recipe? It might just be a recipe issue. Did you change the size of the boil at all?

Yooper

Recipes 

Well, it's a bit too warm. Ideally, the fermentation temperature (the actual temperature of the beer that's fermenting) would be no higher than 70. If the room was 70, the beer could have easily been 5-10 degrees higher. I don't really think that's the problem here.

Did you follow the directions exactly? A 2.5 gallon boil, with only the 1 pound of extract, and then adding the rest of the extract with 15 minutes left? Even if you followed the instructions exactly, it looks like it should produce a fairly sweet finished beer. It could just be the recipe that you don't really care for.

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Displaced MassHole

Recipes 

I've used NB's recipe for phat tyre before, except I did all grain. It came out excellent not to sweet not to bitter.

If you don't like the final product then thats just one more reason to brew again.

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humann_brewing

Recipes 

you could easily add 5 degrees to that during the main fermentation period for the liquid temp. It is generating it's own heat inside of a nearly sealed environment. So I would say 74-75 degrees is a bit high depending on the yeast. I ferment most of my ales in the low 60s and that is the liquid temp.

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MasterWan

Recipes 

"Did you follow the directions exactly? A 2.5 gallon boil, with only the 1 pound of extract, and then adding the rest of the extract with 15 minutes left? Even if you followed the instructions exactly, it looks like it should produce a fairly sweet finished beer. It could just be the recipe that you don't really care for."

I screwed up the quote there :P

answer:
It could perhaps just be the recipie.
I did a full boil as I usually do instead of doing 2.5 and adding more water to get to 5 gallons. I have been putting about 6 gallons to account for water loss and most of my stuff turns out good.

Does a full boil affect the finished product much vs. doing 2.5 gallons and adding water back?