Am I going to get fizzy yellow water?

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carrotmalt

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I just tried to brew up the Bee Cave Hause Pale Ale as a half batch. My pot's too small for a full batch, and my immersion chiller sucks, so I basically halved everything. Apparently my boil off was more than what I planned for, so I added bottled water at the end to bring it back up to the after boil amount I was shooting for. I sure wish I had taken an OG before adding water, cause afterwards, I came in at 1.021 (Recipe said it should be 1.051). Once this ferments out, it's supposed to end up around 1.011. That aint far from where it is now! Did I just brew up a dang near non alcoholic beer? :mad:

This is only my second all grain, but my first came in pretty close to target. I bought my grain from a different place and I'm wondering if the crush wasn't fine enough. Anyhow, is there anything I can do for this batch, or did I just waste a brew day on an O'Douls clone?
 
It is entirely possible that the wort and water were not completely mixed.

RDWHAHB:mug:
 
No. Should I start doing that. I've just been comparing the after boil and after fermentation gravities to the recipe.
 
This was my first AG as well. When I did it a added a Gallon too much water. I was worried it would be to watery as well, so I added .5 oz cascade as dry hops. It actually came out decent. Kind of like a light IPA. The Bud light crowd really liked it. I would not make it that way on purpose again. but is was still very drinkable.
 
That's encouraging. There are plenty of Bud Light drinkers in the neighborhood. We'll see how it turns out.
 
74 degrees. My hydro says that it's calibrated at 60. I found a chart online and it looks like the difference might buy me an extra .0015 or so.
 
Well, after two weeks in primary, I bottled with corn sugar. It's been a week since then, and out of curiosity I tried one last night. I don't want to jump the gun here screaming infection, but it was awful. I've read that time heals all beers, but I honestly can't imagine this stuff turning drinkable based on last nights sample. I'm ok with it being weak, but there's a strong alcoholish mediciny taste to it. It's only half a batch, but I'm really going to be disappointed if it's not even drinkable a few weeks from now. :(

I sampled it when I took the last hydro reading, and could sense a little bit of this taste, but I assumed it was just hop bitterness that would loose it's edge with time. It's much more prominent now. Time will tell I suppose, but I'm getting really frustrated since this is my 4th batch and I still haven't been able to make a beer worth bragging about.

Since this batch is literally half the strength of what I was shooting for, does that mean it's more prone for wild yeast or bacterial infections, or is gravity even related?
 
Your probably just tasting weak green beer. I have never had a beer that tastes the same between bottling and 4 weeks in the bottle.
 
Did you take a pre-boil gravity reading?


I think that pre-boil gravity readings should be mandatory for all all-grain tutorials. I can't imagine brewing without it. You have to know your boil off rate and hit pre-boil gravity before even thinking about being able to hit target OG. If you dont, you're just relying on volumes and hoping to get assumed efficiency during the mash/sparge.

I never, ever brew without calculating pre-boil gravity based on my measured 18% boil off rate. I sparge until I get wort in my kettle at the pre-determined pre-boil gravity. After boiling I always get within +/- 0.001 of the OG.:mug:.
 
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