bobeer
Fermentation Specalist
So I jumped the gun and added honey to a stout that I thought needed to be a bit drier.
I brewed a big milk stout and the og was 1.086. After 2 weeks, and warming it up to 72 degrees, it had finished at 1.034. I had taken a gravity reading a week ago and decided to let it go for another week in hopes of getting it down a bit further as it was really too sweet for me at that sg.
Fast fwd to last night... took a gravity reading and it was still at 1.034. Seeing that I already tasted it a week earlier I didn't taste it at all before adding 1-2 oz's of honey to it. It's a 3 gallon batch and I didn't want to dry it out too much so I went sort of easy on the honey.
I went up stairs and poured the gravity sample into a glass and tasted it. It was pretty darn good. Not overly sweet anymore even though it was the same gravity as it was when I thought it was too sweet. I did the math and found it to be 6.8% abv which is enough attenuation to deem this beer to be done.
I liked where it's at now so I decided to cold crash to prevent the yeast from kicking back into fermentation.
Now here's my question. Should I just say screw it and let the yeast feast on the honey or will the beer now be too sweet due to the added honey? I'm hoping the honey just gets hard from the cold and sinks to the bottom and I can rack the beer off of it.
I brewed a big milk stout and the og was 1.086. After 2 weeks, and warming it up to 72 degrees, it had finished at 1.034. I had taken a gravity reading a week ago and decided to let it go for another week in hopes of getting it down a bit further as it was really too sweet for me at that sg.
Fast fwd to last night... took a gravity reading and it was still at 1.034. Seeing that I already tasted it a week earlier I didn't taste it at all before adding 1-2 oz's of honey to it. It's a 3 gallon batch and I didn't want to dry it out too much so I went sort of easy on the honey.
I went up stairs and poured the gravity sample into a glass and tasted it. It was pretty darn good. Not overly sweet anymore even though it was the same gravity as it was when I thought it was too sweet. I did the math and found it to be 6.8% abv which is enough attenuation to deem this beer to be done.
I liked where it's at now so I decided to cold crash to prevent the yeast from kicking back into fermentation.
Now here's my question. Should I just say screw it and let the yeast feast on the honey or will the beer now be too sweet due to the added honey? I'm hoping the honey just gets hard from the cold and sinks to the bottom and I can rack the beer off of it.
