Blonde Ale Done In Under 7 Days With 1.002 FG

[BrueDude]

This is one of the beers I had concerns about the crush on. I also had concerns that I might have a stuck fermentation a few days ago. Well, it wasn't stuck, it is done. The final gravity was 1.002 and the ABV ended up over 5%. I pitched harvested and rinsed S-04. I was actually afraid I underpitched.

Edit: This probably belongs in the yeast forum, so I made a similar post there.

 

[Lefou]

What was your post-boil starting gravity prior to pitching your yeast? I'm assuming it was a bit over 1.050.

Sometimes the yeast will surprise you and you don't get the calculated attenuation.
It's happened to me a few times with mixed results. The first couple of times attenuation exceeded my expectations, I realized it was from an acetobacter infection and switched to StarSan.
The third time it happened, there was no infection. The blonde ale I'm currently drinking went from 1.046 to 1.004 in just over two weeks and turned out just fine - plenty of nice, carbonation, no sourness, and no aftertaste of any sort. The yeast was liquid WLP001 California ale yeast and I expected a higher finishing gravity. The yeast gave me a drier ale than expected, but I'm not going to complain because I did ferment a few degrees warmer than normal.

 

[BrueDude]

My original gravity was 1.043. It finally started warming up here, so it fermented at around 70-72, but that was expected.

The truth is that the final gravity sample I took tasted wonderful, even uncarbonated and warm.

 

[kh54s10]

Ideal temperature range for s-04 is 59 to 68 degrees. Look into controlling your fermentation temperature. I shoot for just under the middle of the ideal range. I started with a swamp cooler then built a fermentation chamber. I later added a chest freezer for fermenting lagers.