My FG is pretty low... what now?

So I am on my second batch and tried my hand at recreating one of my favorite beers, Ninkasi Total Domination IPA.

The recipe is here...

% LB OZ Malt or Fermentable ppg °L
84% 7 0 Light Dry Malt Extract 45 8 ~
12% 1 0 American Munich 33 10 ~
4% 0 6 Weyermann CaraHell 33 10 ~
Batch size: 5.0 gallons


Original Gravity
1.070 / 17.1° Plato
(1.062 to 1.073)
Final Gravity
1.022 / 5.6° Plato
(1.019 to 1.023)
Color
9° SRM / 18° EBC
(Gold to Copper)

hops
use time oz variety
boil 60 mins 1.0 Warrior
boil 30 mins 0.5 Warrior
boil 5 mins 1.0 Cascade
boil 5 mins 1.0 Centennial
dry hop 14 days 1.5 Cascade
dry hop 14 days 1.5 Centennial

Everything on brew day went pretty well.

I got an OG of 1.062 (Adjusted for temp)

It has been in primary for 8 days now and I took a reading today and got 1.014 so I am already lower than I want it to be. And there is still some bubbling (might be because I took a reading today).

What should I do about this? Should I rack into a secondary and start my dry hop? I was going to wait until 14 days till I dry hopped.

Thanks!

I would do nothing and continue as planned. Relax it looks like a good beer.

With all that DME and the Munich you have a very fermentable mash. What kind of yeast did you use? If it has higher attenuation (fermenting power) you could easily get down that far. Let it ferment out all the way. Some people like to leave it in the primary for longer, some shorter, its up to your. Either way it wont change your FG. Some folks only use a primary. Truth is you have weeks to let the yeast clean up (even in primary) before you catch off flavors from the dead yeast. I would follow your original plan. 14 days (since ferm is almost done already) in primary. Rack to 2nd and dry hop until your beer clears. Maybe 1 or 2 weeks.

I wouldn't secondary. I only rock out with secondary if I want the yeast cake for something else or I'm going to add Brett. Tasty from Brewing Network would dry hop now, finished or not. You're close. Your yeast don't have Beersmith. They just eat till they can't anymore. Let it ride. Dry hop if you want. If it dries out too much, look into a different yeast or a higher mash temp next time.

I'm not sure where you got your projected FG numbers from, but 1.019-1.023 would be way too high a FG for an IPA. Over 1.018 exceeds the BJCP style recommendation. It would have a cloying sweetness to it. You want to get an IPA dryer to let the hops come through. Looking at Ninkasi's info on their web site it looks like they are finishing around 1.014-1.015 based on the OG and ABV numbers.

I'd bet at 1.014 you are just about done. You can still get some bubbling after fermentation has stopped as co2 continues to come out of solution. If you hit a FG in the 1.012-1.014 area I'd say you are golden and will have a darn tasty IPA there. Personally I'd be shooting for 1.012 if it were me.

Zen_Brew said:

I'm not sure where you got your projected FG numbers from, but 1.019-1.023 would be way too high a FG for an IPA. Over 1.018 exceeds the BJCP style recommendation. It would have a cloying sweetness to it. You want to get an IPA dryer to let the hops come through. Looking at Ninkasi's info on their web site it looks like they are finishing around 1.014-1.015 based on the OG and ABV numbers.

I'd bet at 1.014 you are just about done. You can still get some bubbling after fermentation has stopped as co2 continues to come out of solution. If you hit a FG in the 1.012-1.014 area I'd say you are golden and will have a darn tasty IPA there. Personally I'd be shooting for 1.012 if it were me.

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+1 12-14 would give it a good finish.

Thanks all for the help. I used a 1968 wyeast. I tasted the wort when I tested and it is tasting really good. And I can tell the dryhop will help give it some more hop aroma.

I will just continue as planned. The yeast took a while to start (about 36 hours) but now has done great.

I got the recipe off hopville and modified it for what hops and ingredients I could get. The fg is from that site.

mxpx5678 said:

I got the recipe off hopville and modified it for what hops and ingredients I could get. The fg is from that site.

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Ideally you'd plug in the recipe you actually made into a program like Beersmith to get a better idea of what to expect for FG. Although it can't be trusted for yeasts like 3711 French Saison.

beerandloathinginaustin said:

Ideally you'd plug in the recipe you actually made into a program like Beersmith to get a better idea of what to expect for FG. Although it can't be trusted for yeasts like 3711 French Saison.

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That is actually what I did. I took the recipe, plugged in what ingredients I was actually going to use for my version into BrewTarget. It spit out the OG and FG i should aim for and a high and a low. To be fair it's range of FG was much different than the site I got the recipe from, it went from 1.010 - 1.017