Ipa fg

I brewed my first IPA about three weeks ago with OG 1.077 and took the first SG reading today and it's 1.021, or 7.2% ABV, 71.4% attenuation.

I used WLP002 English Ale yeast with an advertised attenuation of 63-70%.

It's been in the primary this entire time. Active fermentation in the mid 60's for the first week, and has been around 70F for the last two weeks. I'm going to cold crash it then move it to secondary, dry hop, cold crash again, then bottle.

Should I be satisfied with this gravity or should I dry to bring it down some more? It tastes good but I'd be happy with some more ABV. I'm contemplating giving it a gentle stir and bumping up the temp to 72F. I'm okay with waiting for the solids to settle again. Am i wasting my time or is it worth a shot?

Thanks

If it has reached a steady SG and tastes good then I would just rack it. You can try to heat it up and agitate if you really want to try to eek another couple points out of it but I wouldn't let it sit too long or you will start losing some hop flavor and aroma.

petrolSpice said:

I brewed my first IPA about three weeks ago with OG 1.077 and took the first SG reading today and it's 1.021, or 7.2% ABV, 71.4% attenuation.



I used WLP002 English Ale yeast with an advertised attenuation of 63-70%.



It's been in the primary this entire time. Active fermentation in the mid 60's for the first week, and has been around 70F for the last two weeks. I'm going to cold crash it then move it to secondary, dry hop, cold crash again, then bottle.



Should I be satisfied with this gravity or should I dry to bring it down some more? It tastes good but I'd be happy with some more ABV. I'm contemplating giving it a gentle stir and bumping up the temp to 72F. I'm okay with waiting for the solids to settle again. Am i wasting my time or is it worth a shot?



Thanks

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What was your grainbill and mash temp? That yeast isn't known for great attenuation so I wouldn't expect much with a high mash temp and a crystal heavy grain bill.

IL1kebeer said:

What was your grainbill and mash temp? That yeast isn't known for great attenuation so I wouldn't expect much with a high mash temp and a crystal heavy grain bill.

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Here's my recipe (excluding dry hops). It's an extract recipe not AG. I went ahead and stirred it up with my autosiphon until all of the trub was off the bottom, and bumped up the temp to 73F. I'm mostly curious if doing this does help to knock the FG down a bit, for future reference. If not, no big deal.

Brew Method: Extract
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 5.5 gallons (fermentor volume)
Boil Size: 2.5 gallons
Boil Gravity: 1.026
Efficiency: 35% (steeping grains only)

STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.077
Final Gravity: 1.026
ABV (standard): 6.75%
IBU (tinseth): 67.73
SRM (morey): 7.07

FERMENTABLES:
8.5 lb - Liquid Malt Extract - Light - (late addition) (68%)
1.5 lb - Liquid Malt Extract - Munich (12%)
0.5 lb - Liquid Malt Extract - Light - (late addition) (4%)
1 lb - Cane Sugar - (late addition) (8%)

STEEPING GRAINS:
0.75 lb - American - Carapils (Dextrine Malt) (6%)
0.25 lb - United Kingdom - Carastan Light (15L) (2%)

HOPS:
0.8 oz - Magnum, Type: Pellet, AA: 12.2, Use: Boil for 60 min, IBU: 41.96
0.5 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 5.6, Use: Boil for 30 min, IBU: 9.25
0.5 oz - Centennial, Type: Pellet, AA: 10, Use: Boil for 30 min, IBU: 16.52
2 oz - Cascade, Type: Pellet, AA: 5.6, Use: Boil for 0 min
2 oz - Centennial, Type: Pellet, AA: 10, Use: Boil for 0 min

I think this may be another example of the 1.020 curse of extracts unfortunately. The recipe looks pretty solid - except I'd go for WAY more hops!

My experience with 002 is that it doesn't attenuate much more than 70-74% unless you mash really low, use a huge starter, oxygenate well, control temps and use some simple sugars. With the extract in your recipe, only a few of those variables are within your control. I've actually switched from 002 to WLP090 or WLP001 for my IPAs due to unpredictable attenuation with the english strain (unless I'm doing a dogfish head clone)

I think you're probably at terminal gravity but give it a few days at warmer temps and see if you can knock off a few more points.

Well stirring up the yeast and adding a couple degrees to the temp didn't seem to have an effect. I bottled it yesterday and the FG was still 1.021. Oh well.

DocScott said:

I think this may be another example of the 1.020
curse of extracts unfortunately.

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I brewed extract from '93 to '04 and my FG's ran 1.007 to 1.014, so it's not always the fault of extract.

Pitch enough yeast (starter) and shake as much as you can stand or get an aeration stone, I think will help your future batches

Not all extract is the same in the amount of unfermentables it will contribute. Between that and a yeast that isn't known for high attenuation, I'd day you're done. Package it!

On another topic, how did you get your IBU's? I don't have Beersmith on this computer, but your calculations seem high. Lots of flameout hops. Did you let it rest above 170 for a long time and count that into your bittering?

JustLooking said:

Not all extract is the same in the amount of unfermentables it will contribute. Between that and a yeast that isn't known for high attenuation, I'd day you're done. Package it!

On another topic, how did you get your IBU's? I don't have Beersmith on this computer, but your calculations seem high. Lots of flameout hops. Did you let it rest above 170 for a long time and count that into your bittering?

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I used brewer's friend and it has an option to add the extract late in the boil, and apparently doing so dramatically increasing hop utilization. I added probably 80% of the extract with 10 minutes left.