Dead Ringer IPA from Northern Brewer?

Just bottled this beer today and got a FG of 1.022. Is this in the normal range for the recipe? The abv is about 5.5% and I was expecting it to be a little higher. My OG was right on point at 1.064. The sample tasted pretty bland as well, although it was still pretty cold from cold crashing.

There Gold malt extract is blended with Carapils. Carapils doesent ferment out all that well. If using a darker blended LME. Always have some extra light DME on hand to "boost" the OG a bit during the boil. Ive made there Dead ringer a couple of times with good results by doing this. I have gotten away from using boxed kits for the very same reason. I prefer to use ultra light extract " more fermentable" and use the steeping grains for the color and flavor.

Take your ingredient sheet and build off of it. Use it as a foundation. If you are new to brewing. Brew a few fast turn around beers at first "ABV 4-5%"

How long did you ferment it ?

Thanks for the response. This is only my second batch, I probably rushed it a little. I did a week in the primary and then 9 days in the secondary before cold crashing. Are you talking about substituting the extra light DME for the darker stuff that comes with the kit or just adding some in with it?

SnakeHandlerIIPA said:

Thanks for the response. This is only my second batch, I probably rushed it a little. I did a week in the primary and then 9 days in the secondary before cold crashing.

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Welcome to the obsession!

A few other non-recipe issues might lead to this. Mainly yeast and oxygenation. If this used a single smack pack or a sprinkled dry yeast pack - there may have not been enough healthy yeast to get this drier. Also, with this type of higher gravity beer, you really need a good oxygen level to start off. You really need to shake the hell out of it for many minutes to get the theoretical max O2 in this, and thats borderline for this beer's gravity. I haven't made this kit before, but I doubt the LME is old or anything like that as NB has a fast turn over. My bet is in yeast and oxygen.

SnakeHandlerIIPA said:

Thanks for the response. This is only my second batch, I probably rushed it a little. I did a week in the primary and then 9 days in the secondary before cold crashing. Are you talking about substituting the extra light DME for the darker stuff that comes with the kit or just adding some in with it?

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Its common and i did it too when starting out. Its fine and will be drinkable all the same. Just be careful of bottle bombs ! I add DME during the boil on top of whats in the recipe. It goes in my first addition "read up on late addition extract boils".

From here my advice is to look for fast turn around kits with steeping grains. They tend to be cheaper than the rest. Brew day to pouring a glass can be done in 4 weeks. The lower the ABV % the faster turn around time. Fill the pipe line so that way there is no rush on fermentation.

I'll give you a tip.

The next time you buy a kit from NB, get the dry yeast for the kit. It's cheaper, doesn't require you to make a yeast starter ahead of time (liquid yeast packs has half the yeast cells as a dry yeast pack), and supposedly doesn't require you to aerate your wort at all, unlike liquid yeast.

Last time I brewed this kit it finished at 1.016 using dry yeast. Although it sat in the primary for a month before going straight to the keg.

This was my first kit. I want to brew it again now that I've had some more experience.

I have this in bottles right now. The samples I drew ended up with OG: 1.054, FG: 1.018, so I was a bit disappointed. Post fermentation tasted fairly bland too, so I hope conditioning helps.

I have this fermenting right now. Been fermenting for 11days at 65F. The OG was 1.065 and I won't take my first FG until around 14 days. Depending on FG I'll dry hop it then. I aerated the crap out of it and pitched hydrated US-05. Should be able to give you an FG for comparison soon.

Interestingly, I brewed this kit the other month and re-pitched BRY97 I washed from another high gravity beer. Made a 3L starter since re-pitching but had to use LME from the kit b/c had nothing else on hand. Pitched entire starter into chilled wort. OG was off...1.07. Let it sit 2wks then dry hopped 3rd week (didn't rack to secondary) and bottled...was in rush so didn't do usual 4wk. FG was 1.017. 2wks after bottling it was so good I couldn't hold off on waiting longer. I learned a) don't be scared to wash yeast from a high gravity beer to use on another & b) u can use extract from kit for starter in a bind and it really doesn't affect the end taste!

I just checked this one, and I'm at 1.016. Still tastes pretty green. I haven't dry hopped yet, plan on waiting another week and will dry hop in primary. i don't secondary if not absolutely required. It should be in primary for a month at that point. Was a little surprised my sample didn't have more hop flavor. Plenty of bitterness, and I expect the dry hopping to add aroma, but I'm afraid it may lack a little in the flavor department.
Anybody else a find the same thing prior to dry hopping, and how did it end up?

ChemicalBrew said:

I just checked this one, and I'm at 1.016. Still tastes pretty green. I haven't dry hopped yet, plan on waiting another week and will dry hop in primary. i don't secondary if not absolutely required. It should be in primary for a month at that point. Was a little surprised my sample didn't have more hop flavor. Plenty of bitterness, and I expect the dry hopping to add aroma, but I'm afraid it may lack a little in the flavor department.
Anybody else a find the same thing prior to dry hopping, and how did it end up?

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I didn't. ..just tasted a bottling and it had more bitter taste. After only 2 weeks in bottle it already had that good grapefruity flavor...with all that Centennial I'm sure you'll be fine!!

Mine went from 1.061 to 1.012...pretty pleased as this brings it out at around 6.4%...not bad!