Hi everyone! I just got the score sheet back from my first ever competition. It was a roggenbier and I ended up at 15/50 points. Considering the difficulty of a 50% rye bill, it being my third all-grain ever, and that I had to transfer it all to colanders to collect the wort after a nasty stuck sparge (grains plugged the out-flow pipe just past the bend where nothing I had could reach, blowing didn't help), I'm not (terribly) disappointed. (just a little).
The feedback is also super helpful, even if a bit humbling. I'm going to take the categories one at at time, as suggested by the owner of my LHBS. This deals possibly with attenuation as well as bottle carbing, so I wasn't sure where to put this thread.
For the record, I used WY3068 and fermented/bucket conditioned 2 weeks in the mid 60s. I had an OG of 1.052, and a FG of 1.012, so right on the money according to BeerSmith. Used a starter even though I probably didn't need to.
I bottle conditioned with ~6 ounces of dextrose for 3 gallons of beer on heating mats at 78 for two weeks. I was keeping a careful eye because I was worried that was approaching bottle bomb territory. It was put in the fridge for two weeks as well.
The problem -- and I noticed this also happened to a partial-grain Gratzer and a scotch ale -- is that I've been getting zero head, or just a faint layer of bubbles. I'm not sure why. I've eliminated the usual suspect of soap.
The comments are "Full mouthfeel, under attenuated, no carbonation," "no carbonation, very flat," "appearance of sediment on bottle, bottle may mean yeast did not attenuate," and "hard to judge this one. Fermentation appears to be incomplete or bottle conditioning did not happen."
I expected those, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. When I pour it, there are a noticeable amount of bubbles clinging to the sides of the glass. I tried a couple early bottles and got significant carbonic acid bite, so there's definitely CO2, along with that hiss when you open it, and the mist in the head space.
The feedback is also super helpful, even if a bit humbling. I'm going to take the categories one at at time, as suggested by the owner of my LHBS. This deals possibly with attenuation as well as bottle carbing, so I wasn't sure where to put this thread.
For the record, I used WY3068 and fermented/bucket conditioned 2 weeks in the mid 60s. I had an OG of 1.052, and a FG of 1.012, so right on the money according to BeerSmith. Used a starter even though I probably didn't need to.
I bottle conditioned with ~6 ounces of dextrose for 3 gallons of beer on heating mats at 78 for two weeks. I was keeping a careful eye because I was worried that was approaching bottle bomb territory. It was put in the fridge for two weeks as well.
The problem -- and I noticed this also happened to a partial-grain Gratzer and a scotch ale -- is that I've been getting zero head, or just a faint layer of bubbles. I'm not sure why. I've eliminated the usual suspect of soap.
The comments are "Full mouthfeel, under attenuated, no carbonation," "no carbonation, very flat," "appearance of sediment on bottle, bottle may mean yeast did not attenuate," and "hard to judge this one. Fermentation appears to be incomplete or bottle conditioning did not happen."
I expected those, but I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong. When I pour it, there are a noticeable amount of bubbles clinging to the sides of the glass. I tried a couple early bottles and got significant carbonic acid bite, so there's definitely CO2, along with that hiss when you open it, and the mist in the head space.
