In Your Opinion

howdy all!
Last night I decided to try my 2nd nut brown recipe as follows:
10 lbs. Great Western Pale ale
1 lb. Crystal 60L
1lb. Victory 25L
6 oz. biscuit
6 oz. biscuit roasted
4 oz. chocolate
8 oz. Wheat
2 lbs. Clover Honey

.9 Cascade pellets 7.6% 60 min
.5 Willamette whole leaf 4.6% 10 min.
.5 Wiallamette whole leaf 4.6% 5 min.

1 tbl. irish moss 15 min.

White Labs #WLP023 Burton Ale Yeast; pitched at 70F wort temp after colling and aerating(?)

FG came out at 1.090

Question is this... after tasting the hydrometer reading material it seemed be REALLY sweet. Do you think this will stay as sweet as the sample?


My FG came out at 1.090

Congrats on hitting your target OG (original gravity) right on!

Your wort should taste very sweet - all of the sugars are what gets turned into alcohol and CO2 as they feed the yeast during fermentation. It will dry out (get less sweet) as fermentation progresses. RDWHAHB!

thanks Yuri,
Can't say that I hit my target cause I didn't know what the target was. I don't have any brewing software or programs as of yet. It just seemed to be a bit on the high side to me. I think the only other one I've even come close to those high readings was a 1.076 for a pale ale.

It is a bit on the high side (I thought you meant you hit your target since you posted the reading twice)...no doubt due to the large amount of honey you used. It'll likely come out just fine, though...probably a bit dry and high in alcohol.

Two pounds of honey adds 15 points and makes for a really sweet wort. More of a barleywine than a brown ale. It will take a while to ferment and age.

How much longer to ferment and age do ya think? I'm trying to get this ready to take on vacation to Montana and have my brothers try it over the Memorial day week.
ps, love your avatar sluggo

in my experience with the honey, it will ferment out, but you'll maintain a thick/sweet aspect to the brew. it might take some time to carbonate as well... i have three batches that have had 2 plus pounds of honey and they are constantly evolving. one is from january of 2005, the others from 2006... it is a slow process. but you can let them age for a spell and still have good brews

edit: all three of mine sat one month in primary, and at least three months in secondary... one has been in the bottle for a long time (two years) and has taken on a life all it's own....

The final gravity will depend upon your mash schedule, too. And the amount of time your fermentation will take depends upon a couple factors: pitching rate and amount of dissolved O2. If you used pure oxygen and a bazillion yeast cells, that'll cut your time down a bit. Come to think of it, that'll help your attenuation as well. But if you pitched a minimal amount of yeast and just shook the carboy, it could take a bit longer and attenuate less. So many factors!

I kind of disagree, and kind of agree ugly goat. The honey will ferment out. It will not retain any thick/sweet aspect to the brew. Honey makes a brew extremely dry. It ferments out completely. He is right about it taking a bit of time in the fermenting and conditioning. The beer may taste like (poop) for a while, even as long as several months, or even a year. But…. It will probably taste great in a year. DO NOT DUMP IT IF YOU DO NOT LIKE IT IN 6MO…….