brewer8700
Active Member
So, I just finished brewing a New Belgium 1554 clone recipe form Austin Homebrew. I followed the instructions closely on brewing day, and also followed what they said for fermentation. I had a very active fermentation period for about 5 days, starting about 8 hours after pitching my yeast. The directions said to transfer to secondary 5-7 days after active fermentation begins, but at day 7, the airlock was still rapidly bubbling, so I waited to transfer it to day 10. It then sat in secondary for a full two weeks. I tried my testing tube on bottling day, and it was intensely sweet, so I began to be a bit nervous. Then checked my gravity...my OG was 1.061, and my FG was 1.034, giving me a surprisingly low ABV for what I was expecting after all that crazy fermentation. Now I realize this is way to early to judge a beer, its only been a week, but I tried one tonight more out of curiosity than anything else. The beer is still really sweet, its carbed up OK, but just a really sweet beer, that has a taste of un-fermented sugars on the back of my tongue. Does anyone have any thoughts on what could be the issue? Should I have left it a full two weeks in primary, despite the instructions?
Btw...I used white labs southern german lager yeast as per the recipe.
Btw...I used white labs southern german lager yeast as per the recipe.