Overly overly SWEET!!

So I just cracked open my finally carbonated first brew ever rye IPA. Looks great, smells great, tastes like a mouthful of sugar with a hint of bitterness. I bottled with orcanic evaporated cane sugar and am thinking that may be the culprit. Maybe someone can help me find the cause so I can fix it next time. Here's my recipe:

8 lbs pale malt
3 lbs rye
1/2 lbs victory
3/4 lbs aromatic
3/4 Lbs 60 L
1 oz Columbus first wort
1 oz columbus 90 min
1 oz zythos 10 min
1 oz chinook dry hopped

Mash: 154 with few cold spots at 148 for 90 min ( may also be the issue)
Batch sparged twice

OG: 1064
FG: 1017

Liquid yeast San Diego Super( no starter)

Primary: 1 week
Secondary: 2 weeks

Primed with 1/2 cup and 1 tsp of cane sugar

Bottled for ten days today

Any advice Is welcome and thanks in advance

Primary: 1 week
Secondary: 2 weeks

Primed with 1/2 cup and 1 tsp of cane sugar

Bottled for ten days today

Any advice Is welcome and thanks in advance

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It's not done yet.
I let my bottles sit at 70 for 3 weeks, or at 65 for 4 or 5 weeks.
Then refrigerate & try.

Have you had a lot of Rye beers?...Rye does give a sweet flavor....never used cane sugar but I can see that giving sweet flavors...

give it more time...in the bottles

Bottles need 3+ weeks at 70F BEFORE you chill one to test (chill in fridge for 5-7 days). The sugar you used isnt the issue since that's not enough to impact a 5 gallon batch. I would highly recommend getting a scale and WEIGH the priming sugar next time.

Are you 100% sure that the brew was done fermenting and/or wasn't stuck at too high a gravity.

Did you taste your FG sample? if so how does it compare to the taste now. Looks like you got pretty good attenuation.

1.017 is pretty high for a 1.064 IPA. My IPA is also 1.064 OG but finishes around 1.011. Sounds like Rye leaves sweetness similar to crystal malts.

Looking at white labs website, WLP090 Attenuation: 76-83% +

You achieved about 60% in your beer at the point you bottled. I would then deduce you either had mash temps slightly off or the beer wasn't done fermenting.

http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/new_strain.html
http://pint.com.au/calculators/alcohol/

Also you might have under-pitched, and had a stuck fermentation.

So im also new to forums so forgive me if my responses seem a bit scattered. ill go in order. first off, thanks for all the help here, guys.

I intend, upon current results, to let them condition for another few weeks. But how long is too long?

The only Rye beers Ive had are Sierra Navada Ruthless Rye IPA( Dont remember sweetness in that, but may be my pallet) and Devides Hoss Rye lager, but the sweetness in my beer is an overwhelming sweetness and not a good type of malty sweet.

Cant say im 100% sure it was done fermenting, as im new to brewing, but id figure it was since i racked it after 20-30 seconds between bubbles and the last i measured between bubbles was 2 minutes. solid fermentation all the way through, imo. then i just stopped counting. is it common for fermentation to get so low and still get stuck?

yes i tasted it and it tasted about the same only way more floral, the sweetness was a bit different and slightly less bitter( its not very bitter as of now)

IXVolt: thanks for the research! ill try and calculate my pitching rate.

thanks again everyone! I believe, depending on the outcome after a few weeks, that i will lower my mash temp.... and just to be safe, not use cane sugar.

Don't blame the cane sugar, it will ferment out completely and not leave any sweetness.

Bubbles mean nothing. Make SG readings to be sure!

Agnar said:

Cant say im 100% sure it was done fermenting, as im new to brewing, but id figure it was since i racked it after 20-30 seconds between bubbles and the last i measured between bubbles was 2 minutes. solid fermentation all the way through, imo. then i just stopped counting.

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I'm thinking your fermentation wasn't complete. Slowed or lack of airlock activity isn't an indicator of completed fermentation...yeast can still be fermenting at a slower rate, or you could have an incomplete seal on your fermenter allowing the gases to escape. The only sure way to see if you have a complete cycle is to ensure you obtain the same FG readings (using a hydrometer or other measuring contraption) for several days in a row.
Good luck!

I suggest leaving in primary for at least 2 Weeks (3 or 4 is even better), then checking FG 3 days in a row. Checking gravity is the only way to know if its done.

When you have low attenuation, there are 3 likely causes.

1) The yeast just didn't finish up for some reason. Could be temp, yeast health, or time.

2) Your grain bill naturally contained a lot of unfermentables.

3) Your mash procedure left more unfermentables than you planned. Generally, the higher temp, the higher the percentage of unfermentables you get at the end.


And totally not to discourage you, but you might want to knock out a couple of extract batches before continuing down the all-grain road. All-grain provides nearly endless variables for you to tweak to get the exact beer you want. That is great for brewers who already understand the basic variables (time, yeast, oxygen, temp, OG/FG.) If you are still trying to figure those out, the learning curve is a lot easier if you aren't worried about a bunch of other variables too.

eek, i hate to be that guy who goes against the grain with this one, but i'm attributing this sweetness to the sugar.

i've brewed beers with similar OGs and higher FGs and much less ibu's, and i would never describe their tastes as "sweet". i also force carbed these beers in a keg without any priming sugar.

although you seemed to have added a proper amount of priming sugar, it may have been unevenly dissolved in your beer in your bottling bucket. does every bottle from this batch taste overly sweet? if some do and some taste fine but undercarbed, this is likely the source of your problem.

10 days is also a little short of ideal for carbonation.

I've bottled with cane sugar plenty of times, no issues whatsoever. However if you open them early, there's still sugar in there that the yeast hasn't converted to alcohol/co2.

Your mash is a touch high, but malty sweet doesn't sound like what you're describing (dextrine).

What temperature did you ferment at both primary and secondary? Taking it off the primary cake at 1 week could have been a bad idea if fermentation wasn't done enough...but I've never done this so I can't speak to it.

tre9er said:

I've bottled with cane sugar plenty of times, no issues whatsoever. However if you open them early, there's still sugar in there that the yeast hasn't converted to alcohol/co2.

Your mash is a touch high, but malty sweet doesn't sound like what you're describing (dextrine).

What temperature did you ferment at both primary and secondary? Taking it off the primary cake at 1 week could have been a bad idea if fermentation wasn't done enough...but I've never done this so I can't speak to it.

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Hm, I'm still sticking with my uneven sugar dissolution.

The only cloyingly sweet beer I ever drank was sweet due to the amount of crystal malt in it. For the OP, this doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm putting my money on the OP having bottle bombs in the near future.

Thanks again guys. I'm leaving them to condition longer. The ferment temp for both primary and secondary was as steadily as I could keep it at 68-70. Still no bombs but I hope they don't decide to blow. Thanks much but I'll be sticking to AG, only one way to get better at it.

All the best.

brewski08 said:

Hm, I'm still sticking with my uneven sugar dissolution.

The only cloyingly sweet beer I ever drank was sweet due to the amount of crystal malt in it. For the OP, this doesn't seem to be the case.

I'm putting my money on the OP having bottle bombs in the near future.

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Some people are more sensitive to under-attenuated beers. I know I am. Most recently, my Maibock stuck at 1.020 and I can barely choke down a sip. WAY too sweet. So my bet remains on the 1.017 FG.

Next time, the OP should rely on only gravity readings to transfer/bottle, not bubbles. You brew, you learn.

If it was still bubbling AT ALL there was activity. If there was no temp swing to release co2, and no barometric pressure drop to release co2, most likely it was still fermenting. I always do 4 weeks primary 4 weeks bottle conditioning. But that's just how I roll. Mine usually stop bubbling after 7-10 days. A lot of the kit manufacturers tell you to bottle soon so they can sell you another kit. Here's what you should do with most kit instructions:

1. open trash can
2. insert directions unread
3. close trashcan

Everybody has a method they use to brew. Find one that works for you and stick to it. It's about being able to consistently produce the same product from the same recipie. It does you no good to prfect the best recipie in the world if you can't repeat it.

Ten days is not long enough AND your FG seems high. At the least, your bottles are not done carbing. At the worst, you are going to have bottle bombs.

Oi.