Expected attenuation for Muntons Premium Gold yeast

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

heyjaffy

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
139
Reaction score
5
Location
Silver Spring
I working on a batch of Austin Home Brew's ESB and not sure I'm hitting an appropriated final gravity. The recipe is (from memory, I don't have it in front of me):

* 7 lbs. LME
* .5 lbs. malto detrin
* 1.5 lbs. specialty/steeping grains
* couple ounces of some hops

Recipe adjustment:
* 14 oz. "Brewvint Alcohol Boost" - 55% maltose 45% glucose meant to raise ABV 1%

The target starting gravity for the kit without the alcohol boost was 1.054 - I hit 1.063 with the booster, and pitched Muntons Premium Gold dry yeast and saw active fermentation within 8 hours, which carried on strong for about 48 hours before tapering off.

Expected final gravity for the kit without the alcohol boost is 1.015 - I've been stuck at 1.02 for the past 3 days (days 12 - 14 in primary) where I was expecting to get to 1.017 or so. I'm not sure if this is appropriate attenuation for this yeast given the OG. It tastes like beer (I'm happy about that), maybe slightly on the sweet side, though I haven't had an ESB in quite some time and I've never had ESB warm, straight out of the fermenter, so I don't know if I've really hit the expected flavor profile.

Can anyone comment as to whether this looks like appropriate attenuation or if maybe I should give the yeast cake a stir and maybe warm things up a bit to try to knock it down a few more points? As it doesn't taste terrible at this point, I could be inclined to just toss it in a keg and drink it - any reason not to just do that?
 
You are brewing extract. Low attenuation is pretty much a given (the 1.020 curse), especially since you have maltodextrin and speciality malts in there. You can always gently rouse the yeast or up the temperature a little bit, to see if the yeast wants to drop it down further, but I doubt you'll see much improvement.
 
You are brewing extract. Low attenuation is pretty much a given (the 1.020 curse), especially since you have maltodextrin and speciality malts in there. You can always gently rouse the yeast or up the temperature a little bit, to see if the yeast wants to drop it down further, but I doubt you'll see much improvement.

I'm relatively new, this being my 3rd non-Mr. Beer brew, and my other two brews (extract-based) both got down to 1.012 with nottinghams and safale 05. According to the calculation I found, the nottinghams went about 80% attenuation, safale 05 78%, and this Muntons about 75%.

I didn't know there was a 1.020 curse - good to know, perhaps I got lucky the last two times. So far all 3 brews taste good to me, so I'm not really worrying, just like to know what to expect and when an intervention is appropriate.
 
Muntons is probably low 70s attenuation. Did you aerate the wort? Have you kept it warm?
 
Muntons is probably low 70s attenuation. Did you aerate the wort? Have you kept it warm?

Looks like I probably hit the target then - I haven't found any published numbers for attenuation for this yeast, just "high" attenuation. I did aerate a ton and ambient temp averaged 68 degrees during the initial active fermentation, where the thermometer stuck on the side of the primary said the wort was hanging out around 74 degrees.
 
Notty and US-05 are both very high attenuators. You "need" the high attenuation when making extract beers especially if you use the darker extracts.

The 1.020 curse is only a curse if you let it be one. Good to see you aren't fretting about it. Just bitter your beers more if you find 1.020 to be on the sweet side.
 
I've brewed two batches with all LME. Batch 1 was with Munton's Gold and Batch 2 was with Munton's standard.

Both were left in the primary for one month.

I pitched the Gold directly on the wort.
I rehydrated the standard before pitching.

In both brews I was able to get below 1.020 final gravity. In fact, the second batch with the standard Munton's got down to 1.010.

So, I think rehydrating is key and I think letting the brew ferment out for a full month is key as well.
 
I'm having a similar issue. Ive had one in the primary for 3 weeks now. A belgian white ale. I checked gravity after 2.5 weeks and it was 1.020 i had kept it at around 65-67F through most of the fermentation. I noticed that the airlock activity started up again and little bubbles were rising from the yeast cake. I moved it to where its at about 70-71F and more bubbles came out of the yeast cake and the airlock (Im sure a lot due to the warming and expanding of the air inside the vessle) and after 4 days or so my gravity has dropped to about 1.0185. The beer still seems to be a bit cloudy as well. I had planned on bottling in about 5 days from now but I am also considering waiting. If I wait I will be away so I have to wait 5 weeks. What should I do?
 
Back
Top