Milk Stout FG Question

Hello all,

I brewed a Milk Stout a week and a half ago (The Mackeson's XXX in Clone Brews). The Original Gravity was pretty high: 1.064 (The book says 1.058). I thought it might be because I went a little heavy on the fermentables (an extra quarter pound of DME to get the ABV up a bit from the scheduled 4.4%). A week and half later the gravity is 1.030, whereas the book recommends 1.022-4. I gave it a shake today and will leave it until Sunday to move to secondary, but I don't expect much of a drop if any. If I calculate right, the ABV is right around 4.4%, making the extra quarter pound of DME pointless.

One other thing I may have done is steeped my grains at a slightly higher temp than recommended for part of the time. I may have high by as much as 20 degrees for part of the process. Would this effect gravity in any way?

If the gravity doesn't drop anymore, what are the effects on the finished product? Will it be "off," and if so, how? Any insight would be most appreciated.

1.030 is a little high for a sweet stout, but not ridiculous, in my opinion. I wouldn't move it to secondary at all, leave it on the yeast and see what they can do. Maybe up the temperature a little, if you can find a place to get it up to 75F or so, that would help the yeast. Sweet Stouts with an ABV of 5% or less are just about right, imho.

What yeast did you use?

Thanks Pappers. I used London Ale yeast. Temp in the house is 64-68 degrees. I'll leave it in primary and hope for a little more of a drop.

If you did a milk stout the "usual" way, you added lactose which is not fermentable. Depending on which calculator you used, that may have been overlooked, giving you a lower than appropriate FG expectation. Try another oline calculator and see what you get.

Hi William,

I did use lactose, and the target FG is from the Clone Brews book. I downloaded beersmith, but have yet to check the numbers.

navigator419 said:

Thanks Pappers. I used London Ale yeast. Temp in the house is 64-68 degrees. I'll leave it in primary and hope for a little more of a drop.

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That sounds good. Maybe throw a blanket around it or something to up the temp a little.

Also, its common for extract beers to finish a little higher, because the extract is not quite as fermentable (or has a higher percentage of complex sugars that are less fermentable). The range given in your book is about right for the style, I think. Here's the description and numbers on the style according to the BJCP, which you might find interesting.

Tonight, the style-of-the-month at our homebrew club is sweet stout - I have a few bottles of our homemade version that I'll bring and am looking forward to trying others' versions plus some commercial.

Great, I've got an electric blanket I'll try. Hope the tasting was as good as it sounds!

Not to resurrect this thread, but I just bottled a sweet stout that I did. All grain, with an OG of 1.064, and an FG of 1.030. I even goosed the fermentation temps, and it didn't budge. It has HUGE body and a nice roasty flavor. Now, I wait three weeks and see how it turns out. Hopefully, no bottle bombs!

Good reports all around. This actually came out really well and gets better every week. Only four bottles left now.

I did have a problem with the carbonation. I added 3/4 cup bottling sugar to the batch before bottling, but it wasn't enough; the carbonation is thin and doesn't hold well. I wonder if that has something to do with the higher gravity.

English kind of yeasts tend to reduce their activity near the end of fermentation, consider and extra time to be sure that the fermentation is over.