86% attenuation with Safale S-05?

Hey everyone.

Ran into a curious little thing yesterday. I am producing a "tamed" version of Avery's maharaja IPA and I used Safale S-05. I mashed at ~151 and had an OG of 1.062 and fermented around 70, let it go 3wks. Yesterday I transfer to secondary, added my dry hops, and low and behold, my FG was 1.008!

Doing the calculation, that gives me an attenuation of 86.4%. I have seen these magic numbers appear on the forum before concerning the S-05...Just seems odd to get that high of an attenuation. Though, I am not complaining. The actual maharaja starts at 1.090 and ends at 1.009-1.011, so finishing so dry was helpful.

I must say... this may have turned out perfect! the color and aroma is spot on as is the pre-dry hop flavor. Cant wait to taste it in 8 days! (6 more days of dry hop, 2 days for force carbing )

Impressive, but not too surprising.

Here's the attenuations I've achieved (including WLP001):
US05 1.056 -> 1.009, 83%
001 1.072 -> 1.012, 83%
US05 1.057 -> 1.011, 80%
001 1.060 -> 1.013, 78%
US05 1.049 -> 1.011, 77%

Those are roughly in chronological order. I've learned to compensate for aggressive yeast, apparently.

I've done it.

what fermentation temps have you found to result in the highest attenuation? I'm brewing an IIPA tomorrow and want to get it down as low/dry as I can. As i'm getting more brewing experience I am learning how important "treating the yeast well" is.

apparently, my lucky number as far as temp goes is between 70-73 with safale s-05

It's kinda surprising to me, unless you added simple sugar to the recipe. Then it's not surprising at all.

no simple sugars added.

US-05 is a beast. It sucks up sugars like a sponge, and pumps out the alcohol.

It's about the only dry yeast I use anymore.

:rockin:

KyleWolf said:

no simple sugars added.

Click to expand...

Do you pump oxygen into the fermenter at the start to get the yeast going?

Also have you ever heard of using hydrogen Peroxide to infuse oxygen into the wort to get the yeast off and running?

It has as much to do with the mash temp/etc., things that affect the fermentability of the wort. You can get S-05 to finsh high/low/in-between just by varying your mash.

If that attenuation surprised you, you might want to check your thermometer(s) accuracy.

Well, I've never used S-05, but 86% on a typical gristbill mashed at 151 seems high to me. What was your gristbill?

With WLP001 my attenuation is consistently in the 75% range, although I'm generally not trying to hit very high attenuation numbers for something like an IIPA. I'm sure it would be around 80% with a 95%+ base malt grist mashed at 150 or less. I'm doing a Pliny clone in a few months, so I'll find out.

my bill was
11lb 12oz 2row
00lb 09oz Crystal 120
00lb 09oz Victory

and I didn't do anything special to oxygenate I whipped up the wort with a whisk 10min. before pitching.
but as I said before, this beer in production is suppose to finish very low...so maybe it is just a property of the grainbill...who knows. I will calibrate my hydrometer when i get home, but last I checked it was spot on.