febbrewro
Well-Known Member
Brewed three extract batches so far, and have some questions regarding OG and FG of the first two.
The first two batches were kits, but they were put together at the LHBS with ingredients off their shelf. Nothing commercial, so I'm assuming all ingredients are fresh, etc.
According to the instructions with the first kit (an IPA), it said I should hit an OG of 1.055 and an FG around 1.015. When I brewed it, I found my OG was 1.065, and fermentation topped out at 1.025. I bottled, let it sit for 3 weeks, and the final beer was good.
The 2nd batch was a porter, and according to instructions OG/FG is the same as the IPA above. However, my OG/FG ended up being 1.060/1.027. The difference this time is that I had a very vigorous fermentation for about 24 hours (enough to blow the top off my ale pale), but activity pretty much died out after that. I figured with such an active fermentation I'd get closer to the FG intended by the recipe.
My question is what can cause this, and how I can improve so that I hit the OG/FG intended by the recipes. The beer seems to come out fine, and I'm assuming this is because the OG and FG are off by the same amount (about 10 points) Thanks in advance!!
** I forgot to add that these are all 5 gallon batches. I boiled the extracts in about 2-2.5 gallons of water, and then topped off to 5 when transferring to the fermenter.
The first two batches were kits, but they were put together at the LHBS with ingredients off their shelf. Nothing commercial, so I'm assuming all ingredients are fresh, etc.
According to the instructions with the first kit (an IPA), it said I should hit an OG of 1.055 and an FG around 1.015. When I brewed it, I found my OG was 1.065, and fermentation topped out at 1.025. I bottled, let it sit for 3 weeks, and the final beer was good.
The 2nd batch was a porter, and according to instructions OG/FG is the same as the IPA above. However, my OG/FG ended up being 1.060/1.027. The difference this time is that I had a very vigorous fermentation for about 24 hours (enough to blow the top off my ale pale), but activity pretty much died out after that. I figured with such an active fermentation I'd get closer to the FG intended by the recipe.
My question is what can cause this, and how I can improve so that I hit the OG/FG intended by the recipes. The beer seems to come out fine, and I'm assuming this is because the OG and FG are off by the same amount (about 10 points) Thanks in advance!!
** I forgot to add that these are all 5 gallon batches. I boiled the extracts in about 2-2.5 gallons of water, and then topped off to 5 when transferring to the fermenter.