I'm a new all grain brewer and this is my first post. I've been browsing and reading quite a bit, and I think I've figured out what I'm doing wrong, but I still wanted to seek out the wisdom of experienced brewers. The same thing happened on my first two AG batches, both hefes, same recipe. Issue is FG is way too high. I'm going to try for a third batch this weekend and don't want to mess that one up too.
On most recent batch OG is on target at 1.055. Final is stuck at 1.032. It's been that way for over two weeks. Ferm starts strong-learned the hard way why blowoff tubes are used. I use wlp380 and pitch at 54, raise temp to 63 for the duration.
In the first batch the same thing happened (high FG). After four weeks I gave up and bottled with speise. The taste was really (surprisingly) good but extremely low on alcohol.
I think the yeast is fine because of the visual evidence of fermentation. My suspicion is that I'm not hitting my mash temp and getting a lot of unfermentable sugars. I use a digital thermometer but I get different readings all through the mash. And I wonder if I'm too impatient in letting the mash stabilize and should be stirring more to reduce hot spots. I mash in at 111 and apply heat to hit 152. Or at least that's the goal.
Could the temp be the culprit? Am I missing something else? Would an iodine test tell me whether I've got fermentable sugars in the pot?
Thanks very much for the advice.
Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew
On most recent batch OG is on target at 1.055. Final is stuck at 1.032. It's been that way for over two weeks. Ferm starts strong-learned the hard way why blowoff tubes are used. I use wlp380 and pitch at 54, raise temp to 63 for the duration.
In the first batch the same thing happened (high FG). After four weeks I gave up and bottled with speise. The taste was really (surprisingly) good but extremely low on alcohol.
I think the yeast is fine because of the visual evidence of fermentation. My suspicion is that I'm not hitting my mash temp and getting a lot of unfermentable sugars. I use a digital thermometer but I get different readings all through the mash. And I wonder if I'm too impatient in letting the mash stabilize and should be stirring more to reduce hot spots. I mash in at 111 and apply heat to hit 152. Or at least that's the goal.
Could the temp be the culprit? Am I missing something else? Would an iodine test tell me whether I've got fermentable sugars in the pot?
Thanks very much for the advice.
Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew