I just learned an amazing aspect of AL, low FG, Wow.

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BrewN00b

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Just brewed up a Belgian strong ale that was suppose to be a copy of 10/10/10 Devil May Cry. Missed my gravities by a huge mark; about by 20+ points, but hit my FG with a vengeance. 1.004! Damn, it's boozy but I could drop my straw into the primary and drink it as is.

****, AG makes for some GREAT beer.
 
I recently brewed a Belgian Dark Strong/Quad, and my OG was supposed to be 1.103, but my gravity came out to 1.087. I did forget my 1 lb sugar addition in the BK, which I'm kind of happy about because I think adding sugar after fermentation slows is a better for the yeast. Obvioulsy the lack of sugar in the boil decreased my gravity by approximately 6 gravity units, and I did have to ad 2.5lbs of Turbinado to get my gravity up to 1.103 according to my calculations. The beer fermented down to 1.020, which is about 79% AT.

Having said all of that, my main point was going to be that it is difficult to get the extract efficiency out of the Mash tun for a gravity that high. Without my sugar addition, my efficiency was ~65%, including my sugar addition, and decent attenuation my brewhouse efficiency remains at 79%.
 
yep, at that point, simple sugars get eaten quick, instead of complex sugars, which get eaten slowly ( the normal fermentation )
 
Did you add the sugar straight up or put it in water and boil it (for sanitation purposes)

What I actually did was inverted th sugar. I put the 2.5 lbs of sugar into a 2.5quart pot added just enough water (~1cup) to make a syrup, a pinch of citric acid, and brought it up to 230F (thread stage). Once it was cooled (try not to go lower than your ferm temp, simply because your syrup will be thicker and take longer to dissolve if it is too cool) then I poured it into the fermenter slowly while gently stirring to ensure it completely dissolved.

FWIW, I added my sugar when fermentation noticebly slowed, but there was still a healthy kreausen on top. It continued to ferment for an additonal week, so this beer actually fermented for about 3.5 weeks, and I racked to the keg at the 5th week.

It is aging in the keg now.
 
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