DIPA...Failure?

[bradsss]

Hey all, I brewed a DIPA. It's my favorites style so was excited for this one. I suspect something went wrong though and trying pinpoint it.

It does not seem as strong as a DIPA should be, it came out around 7% ABV.

It's got a certain sweetnes to it, It might actually be the taste of malt extract.

Maybe the yeast didn't eat all the malt extract? resulting in lower ABV, sweetness, etc.

What do you think went wrong, has anybody had a similar experience?

 

[gregkeller]

Probably a yeast thing.

What type of yeast did you use? If liquid and you didn't make a nice big starter, then you probably under pitched. For a double IPA you need to pitch lots and lots of healthy yeast. Not enough can lead to off flavors and under attenuation. Also recipe could have had an affect. Extract or all grain? specialty grains? Need a little more info to help you get to the root of the problem.

 

[bradsss]

I used an English Ale Yeast from wyeast, liquid.

It was an extract brew.

Should I use two packages of yeast in the future for a DIPA?

 

[dnslater]

Did you bottle? If so, has it primed yet? If fermentation wasn't complete you could get bombs.

 

[brewkinger]

I used an English Ale Yeast from wyeast, liquid.



It was an extract brew.



Should I use two packages of yeast in the future for a DIPA?

What was your OG?

Did you make a starter?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[bradsss]

i have bottled and it was well primed and came out well carbonated.


My original gravity was 1.074

I did not make a starter. I popped the yeast and waited three hours till the package was blown up and pitched it in at about 70 degrees.

 

[Doctor_M]

What was your OG?

Did you make a starter?


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

And what was your final gravity, your post almost seems like your guessing what abv it is...

 

[gregkeller]

So english yeast typically attenuates a little less than the standard american strains (WLP001 or WY1056). That's going to leave more residual sugars behind even IF the yeast fully attenuates. If you pitched one fresh smack pack into a 1.074 beer you were under pitching by quite a bit. Two packs would put you more in line of what you should be pitching (if the packs are nice and fresh).

Brewing these bigger beers it's all about making the yeast do their thing to the best of their ability. If you want a classic dry DIPA, then you need to do a couple of things to get the FG down low (1.014 at least):
1. Big pitch of a well attenuating yeast (either sufficient starter or multiple packs/vials)
2. good aeration/oxygenation
3. good fermentable wort, mashed at low temps (148-150), limited unfermentable "body" malts like crystal and stuff. With extract it's tough to make sure the wort is highly fermentable because someone else did the mash for you, so really reduce the specialty grains.
4. Not mandatory, but i've had good luck with a slight ramping of fermentation temps. Start cool and the after the first three days or so ramp a degree or two for the next few days to make sure the yeast finish up.

The lower the gravity the less important the above things are and you still turn out good beer. The bigger the beer (no matter the style really) and the more important these things become. There are other things, but I feel these 4 are pretty key to turning out good beers.

 

[bradsss]

Thank you. I'm going to try again with two yeast packs and see where it gets me. I appreciate the advice.

Brad

 

[Trox]

What was the recipe? Knowing that can help us troubleshoot the issue; if there is one, a lot easier.

 

[bradsss]

http://www.brewersbestkits.com/pdf/New BB Recipes/1035 Double IPA Recipe.pdf

A brewers best DIPA recipe kit

 

[bradsss]

My question is now...throw it out..? It's not very good. Drinkable but not what I would probably drink when better stuff is possible.

Can I dump it all into a fermenter and pitch more yeast in order to save it?

 

[gregkeller]

If you dump it back into a fermenter you'll oxidize the crud out of it and it will taste like wet cardboard before you know it. Looking at the recipe it was probably a yeast issue (recipe looks pretty solid from a fermentable standpoint). Even if you could pour them back into the fermenter without introducing any more oxygen (which would be really, really, hard) you'd need to pitch a ton of yeast.

in the future don't pitch until you've taken a gravity reading and you are happy with it. Not much is going to change in the bottle. What I mean is if it's really sweet and higher than expected gravity in the fermenter it's not going to turn into great beer in the bottle. There are some things you can do to help with this problem, but they are pretty advanced, like pitching yeast from a top crop, or using amylase enzyme, etc. You really need to pitch a lot of yeast in bigger beers. That either means a big starter on a stir plate, or multiple packs.

I don't know if I'd dump it or not. do you need the bottles? if so dump it and make it better next time. If not, then keep them and see how the beer changes over time. I always find it interesting to see how the hop flavor/aroma changes over a relatively short period of time in a IPA/DIPA.

 

[CastleHollow]

It doesn't sound like a dumper to me. Invite non-brewing beer drinking friends over and tell them it was an experimental batch. Or, tell them you think you screwed up but ask their input. You might be surprised that it's more drinkable than you think. At least to other people who did not have a preconceived notion of what the beer was supposed to be. And free beer always tastes good.

Re-fermenting at this point won't work so well.

 

[agrazela]

I did not see a final gravity stared. But back-calculating from the 1.074 OG and 7% ABV, you bottled at something like 1.024 SG, and you should be very concerned about bottle bombs. Drink this one quickly!

 

[hopbrad]

Use s-05 or notty next time and not an english strain. maybe 2 packets.
if you use liquid, make a starter and it will attenuate better.

 

[jrgtr42]

i have bottled and it was well primed and came out well carbonated.


My original gravity was 1.074

I did not make a starter. I popped the yeast and waited three hours till the package was blown up and pitched it in at about 70 degrees.

What was your final gravity?
FWIW, a lot of extract brews tend to poop out at about 1.020 FG. A lot of reasons there.
Some things to check may be the recipe itself, the freshness of the extract, the temps you fermented at, and as others said, yeast amount / health and so forth.
Any one or a combination of these things can cause what you are describing.
Smack packs claim to have enough yeast for a full pitch without a starter, but I generally like to err on the side of caution and make one anyway. A quart size, done a couple days ahead of time usually works well for me, but others have their own routines.