I had a vienna lager a little while back that I really liked so figured I'd give it a go trying to make one. Brewed one up about 2 months ago and finally took a sample of it from the keg. Sad day, because it didn't really taste how I was hoping. It has a subtle bready/toasty flavor from the vienna malt, but it is just too sweet compared to the one that sparked this brew.
I had a target BU:GU of 0.5, supposedly in the range of nice and balanced, not too sweet, not too bitter. Well, that was all fine and good, but the yeast didn't attenuate as much as predicted (missed by 2 points, no biggie). So here I have a beer that is in the middle of the road with respect to BU:GU, OG/FG were more or less within what I was aiming for with the yeast. But, it's sweet.
So what's going on here? I think I read that BU:GU of 0.5 is on the high side for a vienna lager (don't even want to imagine what a lower ratio would have given me). The FG ended up at 1.015, kinda on the high side of a FG, but not too far off from the targeted 1.013. The attenuation I got was ~75% compared to Brewcipher's prediction of 77% using 2 packs of Saflager w-34/70. Could it just be from the higher FG? I've had other brews I made with a FG in that range (though not sure on the BU:GU for them), which weren't so sweet.
Before it's mentioned, I take precautions for oxidation post fermentation and close-transfer to a prepurged keg.
Don't have the recipe/data in front of me, but it was along the lines of the following, recipe made in Brewcipher:
85-90% Vienna
2-5% munich
2-5% Crystal 40-60
The rest was carapils and black malt (for color)
27 IBUs using Crystal hops
OG: 1.054 (measured as 1.053)
FG: 1.013 (measured as 1.015)
Water was built up using distilled
I had a target BU:GU of 0.5, supposedly in the range of nice and balanced, not too sweet, not too bitter. Well, that was all fine and good, but the yeast didn't attenuate as much as predicted (missed by 2 points, no biggie). So here I have a beer that is in the middle of the road with respect to BU:GU, OG/FG were more or less within what I was aiming for with the yeast. But, it's sweet.
So what's going on here? I think I read that BU:GU of 0.5 is on the high side for a vienna lager (don't even want to imagine what a lower ratio would have given me). The FG ended up at 1.015, kinda on the high side of a FG, but not too far off from the targeted 1.013. The attenuation I got was ~75% compared to Brewcipher's prediction of 77% using 2 packs of Saflager w-34/70. Could it just be from the higher FG? I've had other brews I made with a FG in that range (though not sure on the BU:GU for them), which weren't so sweet.
Before it's mentioned, I take precautions for oxidation post fermentation and close-transfer to a prepurged keg.
Don't have the recipe/data in front of me, but it was along the lines of the following, recipe made in Brewcipher:
85-90% Vienna
2-5% munich
2-5% Crystal 40-60
The rest was carapils and black malt (for color)
27 IBUs using Crystal hops
OG: 1.054 (measured as 1.053)
FG: 1.013 (measured as 1.015)
Water was built up using distilled