Hitting Target Attenuation

Hey guys -

I just transferred by amber ale to secondary, but I missed by final gravity by 2 or 4 points. That is certainly nothing to worry about, but now technically I am outside of the style guidelines, and this makes me wonder about attenuation.

Does anyone have any good links to getting a target attenuation by mashing procedure and yeast selection? I chose the correct yeast (a high attenuating American ale yeast), so my mashing temperature must have been wrong.

Stiffness of the mash has effects too, from what I understand.

mpetty said:

Hey guys -

I just transferred by amber ale to secondary, but I missed by final gravity by 2 or 4 points. That is certainly nothing to worry about, but now technically I am outside of the style guidelines, and this makes me wonder about attenuation.

Does anyone have any good links to getting a target attenuation by mashing procedure and yeast selection? I chose the correct yeast (a high attenuating American ale yeast), so my mashing temperature must have been wrong.

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You'll lose another few points in the secondary, so you probably won't miss your FG.

-a.

No, the FG is lower than it should be. The beer is over-attenuated.

Even if it was spot-on, I need to review calculating and planning for the correct attenuation.

All your mash variables should affect the fermentability of your wort and therefore have an impact on your attentuation. These include pH, mash thickness, mash schedule, mash temp, time at temp, grains used, etc. I just did an experiment with this and the produced 2 very different beers from basically the same grain bill. Keep in mind that the fermentation variables will also affect your attenuation... amount of yeast pitched, viability of yeast, temp of ferment, temp of yeast and wort at pitch time, ferment time, etc.

Ok, got a link with an explanation of how those variables affect attenuation? Or a book recommendation?

For starters, this section is pretty good about how those factors affect your sugar profile, fermentability, and possible attenuation. I've gone to both ends of the expected attentuation range just by varying the mash variables.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14.html

I haven't seen his latest book but I've heard it's good.

Well, this is indeed an interesting topic that I have been thinking about (and asking around) as well. The problem are the number of parameters that need to be held constant to repeat the same attenuation. For home brewers this is oftentimes very difficult since slight changes in temperatures can have huge affects on the enzymatic activity since the usual one-step mashing temperatures are in a range where alpha amylase picks up in activity and beta amylase slows down in activity. Here is I thread I started about this:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=6164

In general, selecting the mash temperature can only get you low, medium or high body but it is difficult to hit a certain FG within a few points. But you could add some Malto Dextrin to raise the FG by a few points. This is what I did with my HB Berchtesgadener Hell. I brought it from 1.008 back to 1.010. But the FG should have been 1.013 (I didn't use the brand of DME that the recipe called for)

If you find more information on this subject, let me know.

Kai

When would you add the Malto dextrin to raise the gravity?

glibbidy said:

When would you add the Malto dextrin to raise the gravity?

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You can add it to the boil or after primary fermentation.

But I would not do this again. At lest not that much. I sampled some of the beer this weekend and it seems to have a slight off-flavor that I contribute to the large amount of Malto Dextrin.

Kai