1.01 final gravity, consistently

So for the past 3 beers that I've brewed, I have gotten a final gravity of just about 1.000-1.002. I've been using safale-04. I did a blonde ale with a gravity of 1.052, a pale with a gravity of 1.054, and an oktoberfest with a gravity of 1.064. The only issue I've been having is keeping the temperature down. All three fermented at 78-80 degrees. I know this is way too high, but they all turned out well. Now that it is colder I can get that temp under control. But is that really the reason they are finishing so low? I've never had a beer finish under 1.010 before and now I'm getting them down to 0? I did check my hyrdrometer to make sure it works and water at 60 degrees is 1.000. Any thoughts and what is going on?

Are you an extract or AG brewer?

Low FGs like that would suggest that you are an AG brewer and you are mashing at lower (under 150F) temps, or maybe just losing a significant amount of heat during your mash instead of keeping it fairly consistent. The lower mash temps activates enzymes that break grain carbohydrates down into mostly simple sugars that any yeast can easily consume. Mashing closer to 156F, or making sure you are maintaining your mash temp more consistently above 150F would help, as those higher mash temps activate completely different enzymes that break down grain sugar into a mix of simple sugars the yeast can eat and a smaller % of long-chain complex sugars that the yeast can't eat, so they are not converted during fermentation, contributing to the "malty" taste of beer and the typical FGs you are looking for.

If you are an extract brewer, the only real way to consistently get low FGs like that would be if you are ADDING some sort of simple sugar like honey, brown sugar, cane sugar, candy sugar, etc. to the wort. Same concept as the above, just without the enzyme activity - those simple sugars increase the % of simple sugars in the wort, making it easier for the yeast to eat them, and increasing attenuation.

Either of those ring a bell when you think of your process on those beers?

check your hydrometer.

I'd think if you were getting down to 1.000-1.002 there is something besides safale-04 in your fermenter.

Topher,

I am an All grain brewer. I admit, I have been a bit lazy lately when checking my mash temperatures. I dump 180 degree water in my igloo water cooler, let it sit for 5 minutes, then dump the grains in, mix it up and let it mash for 60 minutes. I stopped taking temps because this setup always got me to 152-154. I did not measure on those last two brews that ended up with such a low FG. However I did take better measurements on the brew last weekend because I needed a lower mash temp of 148. I also used liquid yeast (2 different strands, one per fermenter) for the first time in a year. Maybe that will make a difference?

I did check the hydrometer yesterday and it read 1.000 at 60 degrees.

If I had some type of wild yeast living in my buckets, wouldn't cleaning and sanitizing with star san take care of that?

by the way, thanks guys for your help

As far as getting rid of wild yeasts, no cleaning and sanitizing might not git rid of them especially if you are using buckets to ferment. You might have a scratch that these solutions can not get into. I would replace the buckets if you think it is that. It is basically impossible for beer yeast to get down to 1.000 without some sort of help.

that makes sense. Would I notice any off-flavors or anything? My last two brews were delicious. I brewed 10 gallons of each, and they lasted 2-3 months each and they got better and clearer with each pull from the tap. In fact, they have been some of the clearest beers ever. I have been using clarity-ferm during fermentation to help eat up the gluten. Does that have anything to do with it?

It is basically impossible for beer yeast to get down to 1.000 without some sort of help.

Click to expand...

That might be true for the types of beer we are talking about in the OP, but higher gravity beers (Belgian Trips/Quads especially) commonly have FGs down to 1.000 and below. This is because ethanol has a gravity of 0.800, so when you have enough of it, it starts to bring the FG down.

You can't get 100% real attenuation (the max is around 80), but you can get 100% measured/apparent attenuation due to high real attenuation + ethanol content.

DIGFISH, I'd definitely be more careful with measuring and maintaining mash temps in the future.

I mash almost everything at 154F, and looking at my last recipe, BeerSmith shows that 10 lbs of grain at 76F added to 7.2 gallons of strike water (I BIAB) at 162.9F bring the temp back to 154F.

Will do. I'll let you know how last week's brew come out in regards to FG. I'm also fermenting them at a much lower temp now that my garage is cold. They've been fermenting at 64 degrees.

Topher, have you made a beer that resulted in 1.000? I understand your point but even so I have never heard of that before... not that it isn't possible

Dig, does the beer taste like it has some funkiness?

No funkiness whatsoever. It tastes great. There is a bit of diactyl taste but that is from fermenting at 78-80 degrees (by accident). That flavor also mellowed as it conditioned and was gone by the second keg.

Jumped in on this late, but have been down this road before. Don't know for sure what solved it, I was using 1-step most of the time and idophor occassionally and brewing extract and partials. My gravities were hovering around 1.000 and I thought evwrything was really finishing great. But one time I went an extra 10 days in secondary and I ended up at a 0.990. Needless to say I wasn't thrilled to do the math and realize neither the recipe or the yeast could equal what had happened. Sooo against all of our better judgment, I brought out the heavy hitter and bleached everything and spent the rest of my weekend rinsing with good clean water. Very next batch of beer hit 1.010 and I've not dipped below since. Just rinse like hell. Good luck. My beers never tasted too funny, but the fg sure got some funny looks when it was being judged!

That's a great idea. When i take this batch out of the buckets, that is what I'm going to do. make up a bleach solution and let it sit for a few days. thanks!

digphish said:

That's a great idea. When i take this batch out of the buckets, that is what I'm going to do. make up a bleach solution and let it sit for a few days. thanks!

Click to expand...

Consult Palmer's suggested dilution (1 Tbls per gallon) and rest time in HTB, chapter 2.2.3 I believe. Bleach does have a tendency to be appropriate for only a certain amount if time. 20-30 minutes and a good rinse and your in business. Don't forget to hit the lids too. Hope this helps. It good try and snuff out this problem.

ya, you might wanna hit everything with bleach actually... like all the hoses and equipment that touched stuff after fermentation. Just let it dry sufficiently too.

I had the same problem when I was testing out a recipe for a beer to be served at my wedding...turned out my mashing thermometer was 10 degrees too high between 140-160 and since the recipe called for some honey, that brought my FG down even further (around 1.002). I can't stress how important it is to maintain mash temps. There's some crazy chemistry going on within a couple degrees there and it makes a big difference. Did you take into account your grain temp? What works great for one brew in the summer can be a different story in the fall...

It sounds harsh - but if your time is worth any money I suggest replacing all plastic.

I had a buddy who had infections on a bunch of batches in a row. He tried to be cheap and bleach, sun bleach, star san etc everything - but it just wouldn't go. For less than $50 he replaced all of his tubing and plastic items and the infection was gone. That's after a bunch of batches of destroyed ingredients. He brews a lot of mead - so for less than the price of one batch he saved all of his future batches.

If you're spending $20-40 per batch on ingredients - then it's well worth the cost of a batch or two to get things right.

All great ideas. Since my brews haven't been disasterous, I'm going to try the bleach first. If that doesn't work, I'm replacing the plastic. How exactly do we check for an accurate thermometer? I put it in boiling water and it was bewteen 200-212. I put it on ice in the freezer and it read 20. What is the most accurate way to check?

digphish said:

All great ideas. Since my brews haven't been disasterous, I'm going to try the bleach first. If that doesn't work, I'm replacing the plastic. How exactly do we check for an accurate thermometer? I put it in boiling water and it was bewteen 200-212. I put it on ice in the freezer and it read 20. What is the most accurate way to check?

Click to expand...

do you have another thermometer? if they read the same then it's ok.

brycelarson said:

It sounds harsh - but if your time is worth any money I suggest replacing all plastic.

I had a buddy who had infections on a bunch of batches in a row. He tried to be cheap and bleach, sun bleach, star san etc everything - but it just wouldn't go. For less than $50 he replaced all of his tubing and plastic items and the infection was gone. That's after a bunch of batches of destroyed ingredients. He brews a lot of mead - so for less than the price of one batch he saved all of his future batches.

If you're spending $20-40 per batch on ingredients - then it's well worth the cost of a batch or two to get things right.

Click to expand...

^This. If you think it is an infection involved, it is the only way to go. Been there myself (twice). The last time I simply ditched the plastic. I use only glass and have never had another infection. Thirty some odd batches and counting...

The low FG is likely mash temp related if it isn't an infection. All that alcohol produced from the resulting high fementability of the wort brings the FG way down. My standard Belgian Quad regularly finishes at 0.990 at 10% ABV. Mash hotter and you will finish higher for sure.

Doesn't sound like infection to me since your beer tastes fine. I had similar issues getting all beers with fg of 004-001. I was mashing at 148 to 150 for an hour and then mashing out to stop conversion. Problem was my mash out was not hitting 168 degrees it was hitting 158ish so it was still converting for another 30-40 minutes while fly sparging.. So in essence it was a long mash (90-100 minutes vs 60) and low temps. Perfect storm for very high attenuation. Higher mash temps and making sure mash conversion ended at 60 minutes by batch sparging (to get the wort away from grains at 60 minutes) fixed my problem and gave me fg's exactly where they needed to be. For fly/continuous sparging better control of the mash out to get up to 168 degrees for the 40 minute fly/continuous sparge would also fix the high attenuation problem. We can't be sure if this is your issue since you didn't take proper temp readings but it's worth looking at and worked for me.

Any idea was this recipe from Adventures in Homebrewing anticipates an FG of 1.01? I want to get this Mild Ale, but I'd rather it end with an ABV of around 3.5%. https://www.homebrewing.org/Pointons-Proper-English-Mild-Recipe-Kit_p_3619.html

derekp83 said:

Any idea was this recipe from Adventures in Homebrewing anticipates an FG of 1.01? I want to get this Mild Ale, but I'd rather it end with an ABV of around 3.5%. https://www.homebrewing.org/Pointons-Proper-English-Mild-Recipe-Kit_p_3619.html

Click to expand...

I suspect the title of this (pretty old...OP last seen in 2013) thread was supposed to say "1.001". I don't see a reason why that Mild would not end in the 1.010 range.

The topic of the thread is interesting to me though. My girlfriend brewed 3 batches of Saisons recently that ended real close to 1.000. They taste good and Saisons are supposed to attenuate well, but not that well as far as I know. Only one of them even had sugar (all were BIAB mashed in the 148F range). I feel like there is an infection in there somewhere, but she is happy about the ABV and the taste.

BJCP style 25B Saison ranges from 1.002 to 1.008, so your 1.000 is just a scosche out of bounds. Maybe within hydrometer error?

Cheers!

Saccharomyces cerevisae var diastaticus no need no stinkin sugar.

As far as I can tell, every single Saison yeast I'm aware of is an STA1 yeast (ie secretes an enzyme breaking down dextrins into simple sugars resulting in extremely high attenuation). Some recent research is suggesting a genetic mechanism whereby some (like 3711) are highly diastatic and will reach incredibly low gravities rapidly, where others (like 3724/Dupont) are inhibited and take longer to reach those levels of attenuation (unless assisted).

Of course, diastaticus is also being seen as a relatively pernicious and resilient organism, and I've read can even form a biofilm (I've seen Belle Saison in particular called out for this) making it much harder to get rid of.

It means that a handful of surviving cells from a previous Saison brew (or other diastaticus variant STA1 yeast) could potentially result in unintended overattenuation down the line. I excercise the same care that I do with Brett- heat pasteurization and segregation of anything that can't be heat pasteurized.

Dunno if that's the OP's problem or not, and given the necro thread dunno if we'll ever know.