How high is too high FG

[jabberwalkie]

I have poured of John Palmer's book and Papazain's book and really haven't found a clear cut answer to how high of an FG is too high. The closest to an answer I found was 1: when the gravity readings have leveled off and 2: when gravity reading have decreased by 1/4-1/5 of the original. My goal was to brew a quick and easy blonde like all extract beverage. Basically Briess pils DME, Hallertua hop pallets and Safale t-58. Wanted fruitier esters, light straw color; just an easy drinking summer afternoon brew. Fermented at ambient temp of 68-70 for two weeks. I took gravity reading which stayed at 1.018 for several days (OG: 1.061).

So is this too high of a gravity to go a head and bottle? Being an extract recipe I would think there would be more fermentables for the yeast to eat up and finish lower. Or did the warmer temps make it burn out too quickly?

Tasted a sample from final gravity reading and really loved the flat beer, great aroma, light on the palette and who doesn't love hallertau hops. The sample did seem sweet but i figured a higher carbonation would help cut the appearance of being too sweet.

 

[bigplunkett]

Malt extract sometimes dosnt attenuate well next time if you want it dryer try .5# of suger it will get you closer

 

[jabberwalkie]

Wow thanks for the quick response. My biggest fear is having shards of glass setting up shop in my face and walls

 

[bigplunkett]

If its stable for 2 weeks your golden. Also t58 should have about 70% attenuation witch puts you right where your at.

 

[kh54s10]

Extracts commonly stop a little higher than an equivalent all grain recipe. I think that at 1.018 it is probably done. If you are worried wait longer and take another gravity reading.

Carbonation and time bottle conditioning will likely change the flavor you are getting from the gravity sample. I have had a few that I said "Ugh, i missed on this one" but after conditioning they were good.

Don't try to carbonate too high to counteract the sweetness, otherwise you might create bottle bombs not due to the FG but to over priming.

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

1.018 is fine depending on what style. You just need to calculate the correct amount of priming sugar. As long as you make the correct calculations, it wouldn't matter if your final Gravity was 1.040.

 

[flars]

Did your specific gravity measurements confirm that the fermentation was complete before cold crashing?

A lot of recipes give a time line for fermentations but there are a lot of variables as to when the yeast being used actually finishes. The only way to know is by taking specific gravity measurements several days apart. Some yeasts will take a week to drop the final one or two specific gravity points.

 

[JayEff]

From an inexperienced brewer who's read a lot: Final gravity is a function of alcohol and unfermentables present in the product. There's unfermentable sugars from caramel malts which increase the gravity, and the alcohol content which reduces the gravity, the latter being rather negligible for beer, as a water-ethanol mixture of 5 % ethanol has a gravity of 0.989.

Basically, if your gravity stays the same for a few days, as it has, then the yeast has consumed all the fermentable sugars in your solution and you're left with unfermentable chemicals - salts, sugars, esters, phenols I guess, and alcohol. There's no need to worry about bottle bombs, if you bottled and added no priming sugar, no carbonation will occur as the yeast can't ferment any more chemicals in solution.

This is just to expand on what people, specifically brandonlovesbeer, said, so you understand what's going on. (please correct me if I'm wrong)

 

[flars]

I just had the specific gravity of a stout remain stable for over a week and then drop 7 points while in the bottle. There are no hard and fast rules in brewing beer.

 

[jabberwalkie]

So FG remained stable today so I went ahead and bottled. I was shooting for 2.5 volumes of co2 which is on par for this style. Using brewersfriend priming sugar calculator it says there is already .83 dissolved co2 in there. Mixed my corn sugar with water add mixed it in my bottling bucket and then bottled.

Im still a noob and not having a defined range of an acceptable FG bothers me. I don't want my batch to go to waste or have it hurt somebody. Is there a way to tell if all the fermentable sugars have been exhausted and the yeast just crapping out early?