Celebration Clone High FG

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Johnnyboy1012

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I brewed a SN Celebration Ale Clone 13 days ago with WLP 001. My recipe was:
13.5# 2-row
1.5# Crystal 60
I boosted up the recipe up a bit because I wanted to brew a 5.5 gallon batch to end with 5 gallons of beer. The original recipe in BYO calls for 12.5# of 2-row and 15oz of crystal 60. Beersmith gave me 7 SRM while the recipe is supposed to be closer to 11-12. So I increased the ratio to 10% crystal 60 which gave me an SRM of 11.

I mashed at 157 like it says to do in BYO which is high but I also listened to the CYBI on the BrewingNetwork where they attempted to clone this beer. They interviewed the owner of SN and he gave the same recipe as in BYO, except he said to start the fermentation at 62 and let it rise to 68 over the course of fermentation, which I did. I boosted up the recipe up a bit because I wanted to brew a 5.5 gallon batch to end with 5 gallons of beer. The original recipe in BYO calls for 12.5# of 2-row and 15oz of crystal 60. Beersmith gave me 7 SRM while the recipe is supposed to be closer to 11-12. So I increased the ratio to 10% crystal 60 which gave me an SRM of 11. Listening to the recipe the was given on CYBI, the owner said to use about 11-12% Crystal 60. I used 10% and still ended up with a higher FG. Today (13 days later) I racked to a keg on top of dry hops and when I checked the FG it was at 1.028. The sample tasted really really good so I am not too concerned but the FG should be closer to 1.018-1.016. I had a 1.5L starter on a stir plate at 1.040 that I let go 24 hours then put it in the fridge and decanted the morning of brewday.

This is only 57% attenuation with WLP 001, which is a great attenuator. Could this poor attenuation be caused by the cool fermentation temp? Doing my own research on the matter I've seen on here that people have fermented with 001 at 62 and not have a problem. The beer reached 68 degrees at the height of fermentation and then the temp decreased slightly to 66 once the bulk of fermentation was over. I'm not a noob to the game and am sure this is due to the high mash temp. I've never mashed this high before so from now on I guess I should know what to expect. I'm just confused on to how SN gets it to 1.016 because they mash at the same temp.

The beer is in a keg but not in the fridge yet. Should I leave it out incase the yeast are still working? Anyone else have this problem? Suggestions? Thanks guys.



JH
 
Don't throw it into the fridge just yet, see if the FG goes down a little more. You might have had a stuck fermentation.
What was the best by before date on the yeast you got and what was the OG?
At this point I'd leave it in the keg to see if the gravity drops a bit.
 
If there was a question as to being complete it should not have been racked to a keg. At 13 days I too would expect a lower fg but it jus may not be done grabbing those last few points. Did you try to rouse yeast and warm up vessel?

Are you sure your thermometer is accurate? A couple degrees off 157 could mean a much warmer mash than you thought as well.

What was the actual OG?
 
Don't throw it into the fridge just yet, see if the FG goes down a little more. You might have had a stuck fermentation.
What was the best by before date on the yeast you got and what was the OG?
At this point I'd leave it in the keg to see if the gravity drops a bit.

The best by date was March 28th so pretty fresh yeast. the OG was 1.067.
 
If there was a question as to being complete it should not have been racked to a keg. At 13 days I too would expect a lower fg but it jus may not be done grabbing those last few points. Did you try to rouse yeast and warm up vessel?

Are you sure your thermometer is accurate? A couple degrees off 157 could mean a much warmer mash than you thought as well.

What was the actual OG?

I swirled the carboy around numerous times and as fermentation began to slow I put an electric heating pad on low on the side of the carboy, which was inside my winter jacket.

Yes my thermometer is accurate, I checked it with boiling water as well as ice water.
 
I swirled the carboy around numerous times and as fermentation began to slow I put an electric heating pad on low on the side of the carboy, which was inside my winter jacket.

Yes my thermometer is accurate, I checked it with boiling water as well as ice water.


Then I would give it another week and see if it goes down. If its not too sweet and you like it you can just carb it.
 
What did you do for aeration? You know what you are doing, so this is one of those weird situations we all come across. I know that at that high of a mash temp I'm not expecting a low FG; btw 1.019 is what my beersmith is coming up with for an FG.

A recent article in Zymurgy (Jan/Feb) had some advice for aerating the beer every few days for primary fermentation as well as moving the carboy around to rouse the yeast.
 
What did you do for aeration? You know what you are doing, so this is one of those weird situations we all come across. I know that at that high of a mash temp I'm not expecting a low FG; btw 1.019 is what my beersmith is coming up with for an FG.

A recent article in Zymurgy (Jan/Feb) had some advice for aerating the beer every few days for primary fermentation as well as moving the carboy around to rouse the yeast.

I aerated with a diffusion stone and disposable O2 tank from Lowes for about 45 seconds to a minute. A problem i do have with that is that the stone is on the end of a piece of tubing and i cant seem to get to all the way to the bottom when I aerate
 
Ok, I have the same problem with my stone...
Well hopefully someone else has a solution to your problem. The only thing I could say is try and check that gravity before throwing it off the primary. Sometimes with those low temps you need some more time on the yeast. But that is all hindsight.
 
Ok, I have the same problem with my stone...
Well hopefully someone else has a solution to your problem. The only thing I could say is try and check that gravity before throwing it off the primary. Sometimes with those low temps you need some more time on the yeast. But that is all hindsight.

I should have kept it in the carboy on the yeast longer. The thing is is that I know better! I'm now kicking myself that I put it in the keg with it being such a high FG.

If the yeast were not done with what they were doing wouldn't there be some sort of off flavor? Diacetal? When I tasted it, I thought it was one of the best samples I had tasted.

I also took a refractometer reading because I couldn't stop trying to convince myself that I read my hydrometer wrong. The refractometer read 1.038, which I know is distorted because of the alcohol in the beer, but I tried to put it into the MoreBeer conversion chart and I can't seem to figure that chart out or maybe it wasn't working right...
 
After I wrote that last response I retried the MoreBeer Refractometer conversion spreadsheet and I it said that my FG is 1.020! According to my refractometer reading. That makes me feel a hell of a lot better! When I tasted the sample I felt like it didn't taste overly sweet and it didn't have a thick oatmeal stout like body. Maybe my hydrometer is busted, although I did check its calibration with tap water and it was right on at 1.000....
 
I'm not sure.
Maybe throw another vile of 001 or sf-05?
Anybody else out there have some solutions???
 
I'm embarrassed to say that I just took another FG reading and it is 1.020. I am positive it was 1.028 earlier because I took the reading twice. Earlier I took the reading in my clear wine thief, but just a few minutes ago I put the sample in a tall slim beaker. I don't know how that happened, but possibly the slim thief had more concentrated CO2 raising to the top and pushed my hydrometer up a bit. I'm going to leave the sample in the beaker over night and let it degas more and hopefully I notice it drop a few more points. I do see a bunch of small CO2 bubbles on the bottom of my hydrometer. Thanks for the help guys
 
157 is a pretty high mash temp for easily fermentable sugars. Also the crystal malts aren't going to be as good at producing easily fermentable sugars like your base malt does. I also think WLP001 has a tough time doing hard work at 62.

My opinion is that 1.020 might be all you're gonna get. I bet it still tastes good.
 
157 is a pretty high mash temp for easily fermentable sugars. Also the crystal malts aren't going to be as good at producing easily fermentable sugars like your base malt does. I also think WLP001 has a tough time doing hard work at 62.

My opinion is that 1.020 might be all you're gonna get. I bet it still tastes good.

I think you are right. I started this thread thinking my FG was at 1.028 but after checking a third and fourth time it's is 1.020. That is ok with me because I had slightly better efficiency then I expected plus I increased the crystal malt. It's about 70% attenuation and that's ok with me. The problem I think I ran into is that my sample was holding a lot of carbonation in it and raised my hydrometer slowly giving me a wrong reading
 
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