How to make sure your beer attenuates to the preferred level for flavor.

I'm sure I'm not the first to notice that they don't really enjoy beers that finish at a higher final gravity like 1.020 or higher. I've had a Belgian tripel and maple oatmeal stout that both had a slightly sweeter than preferred taste. I wish they had "dried" out a bit more. Is there anything I can do to get the final gravity lower like increase pitch rate, oxygenation... These beers finished where they were supposed to but I would like lower.


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Pitch rate, oxygenation, lower mash temps, fewer adjuncts, optimum mash pH, fermentation temp control, etc, etc are all things that can help with attenuation and there are plenty of posts covering each of those. However, you say that these brews all "finished where they were supposed to". This makes me think you may just need a higher attenuating yeast. Assuming you have BeerSmith or some other software that is telling you a predicted FG (where it is "supposed to finish"), just try plugging in other higher attenuating yeasts and see what it says. If you are just ending up at the lower end of a particular yeast's attenuation range, then some of these other factors may help but otherwise a different yeast may be the answer.

 

A small amount of yeast nutrient may also help particularly when brewing high gravity beers. And don't be afraid to use up to 10 - 15% cane sugar in a Belgian Tripel which will definitely lower the FG.

 

I brewed an imperial pumpkin ale that was sitting at 1.018 after 8 days in primary when I added a 1/2 lb of table sugar.

was expecting it to dry out only a few points, but it was down to 1.004 when I racked it to secondary.

from an OG of 1.125, made it almost 97% attenuation and 14.6% ABV.

so, it's a pumpkin barleywine now, 162 days in the bottle. might have to try one soon