1.074OG to 1.024FG Hazy

[Flushot22]

I made a hazy I am going to be pouring at my local brewfest through my HBC. Since it's only 5.5 gallons I wanted to make it pack a bit more of a punch and be in the 7%-7.5% abv range. (I'm cool with it being lower, just something I was shooting for)
After tinkering with the recipe, it was calculated that the OG would start at 1.075 which it did and the FG was to be 1.017 but it seems to have stalled out at 1.024 after 3 days fermenting (Lalbrew New England) and 3 days on the dry hop. Maybe my mash temps went a little high, anything is possible

Now it's only 6 days since I brewed it, but without opening it and exposing it to oxygen, do you think the beer should be fine, cold crash and let er sit in keg? Leave in fermenter for another week or so? Or will it be too sweet and should I dilute with water or add some amylase to it?
Any suggestions welcome.

 

[Tony B]

Sounds like you still have about a 6.55% abv. Holding gravity at 3 days says it’s done. I’d run it through your standard pases and give it a taste. If it tastes good… send it.

 

[day_trippr]

...6 days total from the pitch. Why?

 

[lumpher]

I'm with day_trippr. 6 days is rushing it. Warm it up a little if you.can, swish it around to stir up the yeast, and give it a few more days.

 

[Flushot22]

...6 days total from the pitch. Why?

I use a rapt pill, so I can see the velocity of the fermentation pretty accurately. I know its green and I have been leaning toward letting it sit since the brewfest isn't until October 4th. Just looking for advice regardless.

 

[Tony B]

In my experience, considering hop forward beers, freshness is key. Not a lot of need to let them sit and “ condition “ much beyond the end of active fermentation. I usually give mine 3-4 days after I see the krausen fall and activity drop off. Then rack to keg, chill for a day and burst carbonate. I will drink them a few days after carbonation, but they seem to peak about a week after that.

 

[Flushot22]

In my experience, considering hop forward beers, freshness is key. Not a lot of need to let them sit and “ condition “ much beyond the end of active fermentation. I usually give mine 3-4 days after I see the krausen fall and activity drop off. Then rack to keg, chill for a day and burst carbonate. I will drink them a few days after carbonation, but they seem to peak about a week after that.

I also find that to me it generally tastes better after sitting a while at serving temps as opposed to fermenting temps. Plus I'm not sure how long I want them to sit on the dry hop. Im not even sure if I'm just going to let it sit if I should just toss in a small DDH LOL. Just getting some feelers on what everyone else would do.

 

[day_trippr]

3-4 days after krausen fall would be way more than 6 days using 1388, for instance...

 

[Flushot22]

3-4 days after krausen fall would be way more than 6 days using 1388, for instance...

As mentioned in original post, I used Lalbrew New England. I wanted to dry hop during the last few points of the gravity drop. Dry hopped at 1.028 hoping for 1.017. Shortly after DH the krausen fell on day 3 along with all airlock activity and now has been at 1.024 for appx. 3 days.

 

[James_AZ]

Have ya given it a swirl? I had one sit for a week no change, after a stir it dropped another 10 points

 

[Flushot22]

Have ya given it a swirl? I had one sit for a week no change, after a stir it dropped another 10 points

I gave it a light swirl a couple days ago. I am using an all-rounder and didn't want to spill the airlock. Maybe I'll give it a bit more aggressive of one tomorrow.

 

[mashdar]

FWIW, two ball lock soda caps and a floating dip tube and your all-rounder can do closed transfers AND you can take samples without opening it. (I like the low profile version of "picnic tap 2.1" for this.)

Re this particular beer, since it's going in a keg at serving temp, I wouldn't worry too much. Follow your gut.

 

[Flushot22]

FWIW, two ball lock soda caps and a floating dip tube and your all-rounder can do closed transfers AND you can take samples without opening it. (I like the low profile version of "picnic tap 2.1" for this.)

Re this particular beer, since it's going in a keg at serving temp, I wouldn't worry too much. Follow your gut.

I do have a couple regular $3 cheap picnic taps. It would just take me switching out my airlock for a ball lock adapter, which I will do anyway when it comes time to transfer. I just wasn't ready to replace my airlock and potentially expose to oxygen. I guess this is another argument in favor of just doing away with my airlock and fermenting solely with my blowtie spunding valve.

 

[mashdar]

As long as there's no blowoff risk and you're not practicing hefeweizen open-ferment-voodoo, not much harm in throwing 1-2psi on there!

 

[Frank Nobrega]

Did you check with a hydrometer to see if the FG reported by the Pill is accurate?

 

[IslandLizard]

Did you check with a hydrometer to see if the FG reported by the Pill is accurate?

That! ^
Are you controlling the ferm temps in any way?
If so, how?

 

[Bobby_M]

1.024 is a LITTLE high but certainly not unexpected at day 6. In a couple more days it may be at 1.020 and probably perfect.

 

[doug293cz]

Did you check with a hydrometer to see if the FG reported by the Pill is accurate?

^^This.^^ Tilt angle SG measuring devices are subject to many effects which affect their accuracy. Getting krausen stuck on them being the most common. Never take a Pill (Tilt, iSpindle, etc.) reading as gospel. The rate of change information can usually be relied on - when the apparent SG flatlines, active fermentation is done.

Brew on

 

[Flushot22]

Did you check with a hydrometer to see if the FG reported by the Pill is accurate?

I did take OG with a hydrometer and I calibrated the Pill before the brew. It has been good to me over the past 2 years. Both had same reading on the OG. I wanted to ask before I started pulling liquid and potentially exposing to oxygen.

 

[Flushot22]

That! ^
Are you controlling the ferm temps in any way?
If so, how?

I don't have a ferm chamber for temp control, so I use a fan, wet towel, and my coolest AC'd room which keeps the temp of the wort in the 70F-75F range, even through high krausen. Just looked at my readings and my temps were at a low of 69.5 on day 2 and high of 74.4 on day 3. Not "ideal" but pretty decent I would think, as I haven't generally had a problem yet with previous brews.

 

[IslandLizard]

You may have underpitched...
I just looked up the specs for your yeast at Lallemand's site.
Link to the pdf.

Pitching rate: 100 - 200g/hL
Attenuation: 78-83%

On the 500 gram package Lallemand recommends a pitching rate of 1-2 grams per liter. At your measured gravity of 1.075, I would lean toward the higher end of the pitching rate, at around 2 grams per liter.

For 5 gallons (~19 liters) that would mean 19-38 grams of yeast. If you only pitched one 11 gram package, that would be well below the minimum.

I couldn't find any oxygenation (or aeration) guidelines, except when repitching the yeast.
Usually oxygenation (or aeration) is not required for dry yeast, as Sterol reserves tend to be high at the time of drying/packaging.

 

[HM-2]

Would probably be useful to know a bit more detail, like grist/wider recipe. I wouldn't be surprised if the Rapt was way off, they usually are if they get a bit of yeast krausen or hop matter on them.

1.075 to 1.024 is circa 67% attenuation which is less than I'd expect from New England but it sounds like you did significantly under pitch. I've never had NE stall out on me but have found it can get a bit sluggish when approaching FG. If there's a lot of unmalted wheat and oats in there that could also be a factor.



If your process is solid and your protected against oxidation the "NEIPA should be packaged as green as possible" mantra can be safely ignored for a while. Though if you've already dry hopped and done so at typical NEIPA levels (10g/L plus, say) you might be best served, again assuming you can do fully closer transfers with no risk of oxygen ingress, getting the beer off the DH at day 5-6 at the latest and letting it basically "brite-tank" for another week in another (sealed) vessel.

You'll hopefully have enough yeast to finish residual fermentation and clean up and hop creep without diac, you'll avoid over extraction leading to vegetal beers, and probably end up with a beer that's significantly more drinkable come kegging tine.