What caused low FG?

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CraigT

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This was only my 3rd brew ever and i tried making some kinda ipa. Shouldnt have tried to make a high gravity ale so soon but i was curious i guess. My OG was 1.080 and my FG ended up at 1.002.


Amount Item Type % or IBU
12.00 Norther Brewer's Golden Light LME Extract 85.71 %
2.00 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 14.29 %
3.00 oz Nugget [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 75.8 IBU

So heres where i am pretty sure i went totally wrong? I was reading about with high gravity beers you need to make a starter and I didnt think about it until after i started brewing. so i got paranoid i guess and threw in a pack of nottingham yeast that i had lying around from a kit i had along with the wlp099. would too much yeast have caused the low fg?

1 Pkgs Super High Gravity Ale (White Labs #WLP099) Yeast-Ale
1 Pkgs Nottingham (Danstar #-) Yeast-Ale

I haven't bottled it yet but i sampled it and since its so dry the alcohol really stands out. i was thinking about dry hopping it for a week maybe to add some aroma to maybe aid in covering up but i dont think itll help much at all with my problem.

im not as worried with trying to make this batch better. but i would like to know exactly what i did wrong so that i can avoid this in the future if i would try another high gravity beer
 
Sounds like it went pretty good to me. LOTS of alcohol! Nothing wrong with that. Basically, different yeasts are going to attenuate differently and under slightly different conditions. You are right. Not just more yeast, but different kinds of yeast can cause a lot more of the sugars to be converted to alcohol.
 
A big factor in fermentability is your mash temps...lower mash temps produce more fermentable sugar (resulting in potentially lower FG and "drier" beer) and higher mash temps produce less fermentable sugars (resulting in potentially higher FG and "sweeter" beer). That's why a drier IPA will be mashed at a lower temp than a sweeter Belgian Dubbel for example.

I say "potentially" because yeast, fermentation temps, other sugars added along the way, etc. affect FG along the way as well.
 
Drew when you say mash, does that go for the caramel/crystal? because i know that i pulled it out somewhere around 170. i know it doesnt have a whole lot of fermentable sugars but would it have helped to have let it in until closer to boiling?
 
What i would do is drink that stuff out of a snifter at close to room temp and tell everybody that its beer snob beer and they wouldnt understand. Sooo,,, when they try it and hate it you can say "I told you, you wouldnt understand"
 
i think you maybe should have only used 6 or 9 pounds of the liquid malt extract, the 12 pounds that you used, would give you a starting gravity somewhere around 1.086 if used by itself without the crystal malt. that's a lot of fermentable sugars for the yeast to make plenty of alcohol. i say drink it, drink it easy. i saw that your OG was only 1.080. seems low by my calculations, did you correct for wort temperature? i am new to brewing as well, what information i have comes from a lot of reading books,and research on the net. i could be way off in my opinion.
 
What i would do is drink that stuff out of a snifter at close to room temp and tell everybody that its beer snob beer and they wouldnt understand. Sooo,,, when they try it and hate it you can say "I told you, you wouldnt understand"

haha its looking like that might be my only hope for this one
 
That is 97% attenuation. I wouldn't discount some sort of wild yeast that went to work on some of the leftover sugars in your wort.
 
thats quite a bit. are you sure your hydro readings were at the correct temp?
 
CraigT said:
Drew when you say mash, does that go for the caramel/crystal? because i know that i pulled it out somewhere around 170. i know it doesnt have a whole lot of fermentable sugars but would it have helped to have let it in until closer to boiling?

Here's a good explanation of "mashing":
http://brewwiki.com/index.php/Mashing

In regards to the fermentability of caramel/crystal malts, it is very low. Really, the use of these specialty grains is more for it's attribution of color and flavor. If you're an extract brewer, you're getting your sugar (fermentables) from the extract. However, I believe some tannins are extracted above 170F.

So, no need to keep it in longer because you've gotten the color and flavor out during that initial steeping process.
 
thats quite a bit. are you sure your hydro readings were at the correct temp?

yeah all my readings were done at around 66-68 degrees. i guess it was probably just a problem with the yeasts i used together? or maybe just the wlp 099 since its made to be able to ferment up to 25% abv?
 
The 009 i believe has a 75% attenuation rate but the notty can get up to 90 from what I've read. That said 98% seems way to high with out simple sugars. Id speculate a potential wild yeast as stated above.

Given that you used lme, it typically wouldn't be nearly that fermentable and the specialty grains contribute little.

What temp did you ferment at?
 
Are you sure it was 1.002 and not 1.020? I have a hard time believing that you got it down that low with that recipe without some sort of contamination (other than the S. cerevisiae of course).

From experiments that I've seen recently, Crystal CAN be fermentable, but usually only when mixed with a malt with enzymes to convert its starches. Since you didn't have that, your gravity HAS to be higher than 1.002, especially because you used extract.

Although, no one has mentioned the super high gravity yeast. Let me be the first to say that your recipe isn't "super" high gravity (at least by my standards). You would have been fine with a normal ale yeast. I'm not familiar with this strain, but can it be super attenuative like that? I would think that since it's still the same species of yeast it wouldn't be able to ferment the same sugars that other yeasts can't ferment (dextrins, maltotriose, etc.).
 
Are you sure it was 1.002 and not 1.020? I have a hard time believing that you got it down that low with that recipe without some sort of contamination (other than the S. cerevisiae of course).

From experiments that I've seen recently, Crystal CAN be fermentable, but usually only when mixed with a malt with enzymes to convert its starches. Since you didn't have that, your gravity HAS to be higher than 1.002, especially because you used extract.

Although, no one has mentioned the super high gravity yeast. Let me be the first to say that your recipe isn't "super" high gravity (at least by my standards). You would have been fine with a normal ale yeast. I'm not familiar with this strain, but can it be super attenuative like that? I would think that since it's still the same species of yeast it wouldn't be able to ferment the same sugars that other yeasts can't ferment (dextrins, maltotriose, etc.).

yeah im positive it was 1.002. i was suprised too. i was worried about coming up with a fg in the 1.020's thats why i threw in the other yeast packet. which i see is a mistake. and i agree this recipe isnt a "super high gravity" at all but i guess i was unsure when picking yeast and went on the safe side (so i thought) with the wlp 099. im a beginner so i probably shouldnt have even tried this. but like you said i agree i probably would have been fine with a normal ale yeast.
 
Again, you really must have some wild yeast. Even pitching the amount you did, your beer would not get that dry.
 
No way your beer finished at 1.002. Either you misread or your hydrometer is broken. Even wild yeast wouldn't take a 1.080 beer down to 1.002. 1.020 is about what I would expect that beer to finish at.
 
No way your beer finished at 1.002. Either you misread or your hydrometer is broken. Even wild yeast wouldn't take a 1.080 beer down to 1.002. 1.020 is about what I would expect that beer to finish at.

Am I correct in assuming that he could check the hydrometer accuracy by putting it in a container of plain tap water at the correct temp which should give a reading of 1.000?
 
Am I correct in assuming that he could check the hydrometer accuracy by putting it in a container of plain tap water at the correct temp which should give a reading of 1.000?

Yes, a hydrometer should read very close to 1.000 in tap water, depending on your water/temperature. But I still don't believe for one second that this beer started at 1.080 and ended at 1.002. Unless it was 80% table sugar it just is not possible.
 
i just checked my hydrometer in 69 degree water it read 0.999.

and i only added bittering hops simply because i never did anything else before. i am adding dry hops here when they come in the mail
 
i just bottled this beer after dry hopping with 2 oz of citra for 6 days and tasted a sample and it tastes really good. actually one of the better ipa's ive ever had. i am really happy with how this turned out
 
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