Backsweetened my punkin ale, but now its too sweet. help!

[nisk916]

Made a pumpkin ale and everything in perfect except it finished at 1.004. Way too dry! I decided to back sweeten with splenda so it didn't ferment out. My Main problem is that it took two days for the sweetness to fully come through, and the sweetener was added with several steps within 24 hours. Needless to say, its extremely sweet and not drinkable. I'm left with couple options; blend with another beer(it would be a production beer since I don't have anything comparable) or try to hop-tea it.
Anyone else have a similar problem? This was supposed to be served in a week, so looking for a quick fix. Any input appreciated.

 

[TopherM]

First off, make sure you know what happened and you've learned your lesson.

If you finished at 1.004, you added some simple sugars to your beer, honey, table sugar, brown sugar....something like that. That was a mistake unless the recipe explicitly asked for it, in which case you are supposed to be at 1.004 and it was no surprise.

Second off, don't EVER backsweeten beer with artificial sweetener!!! It might work for cider, but beer and cider are very different animals! Even with ciders, I NEVER backsweeten with artificial sweeteners because MOST people just don't like the taste of artificial sweetener!!

The best way to add malt backbone to a beer that's dried out too much is to boil some DME/LME and add that to the beer. You can figure out how much you need with some simple math or an online calculator (or BeerSmith).

OK...so now where you are. The best thing is probably still to add some boiled DME/LME to this oversweetened beer. There's no telling how much you are going to need to balance the beer out with the artificial sweetener, but I'd start with about 1/2 gallon to 1 gallon of water with about 1-1.25 lbs of DME/LME. Use whatever DME/LME that you used as the base malt for the original beer.

Obviously, make sure the boiled DME/LME is cooled to the same temp as the beer/wort before you add it.

Unfortunately, you are going to have to let this ferment out, and you then still need to carb it once it's done, so this one is not going to be fixed in a week, more like 2 weeks minimum.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Add Coffee.

Coffee pumpkin porter.

Adding much more expense, like DME to make a super high gravity (still) super sweet pumpkin beer sounds like a disaster.

Excellent post Topher, and your advice is sound, I just think that this pig will take $22 worth of lipstick and still suck.

 

[Yooper]

Carbonation changes the perception of sweetness. Can you carb it up first, and see if the amount of sweetness improves? Carbonic acid can balance out a too-sweet beer, at least a little.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Is it not carbed?????? "Undrinkable" left me thinking it was kegged and carbed.

 

[TopherM]

Adding much more expense, like DME to make a super high gravity (still) super sweet pumpkin beer sounds like a disaster.

Excellent post Topher, and your advice is sound, I just think that this pig will take $22 worth of lipstick and still suck.

Yeah, I do agree. I was trying to be constructive, but adding way too much artificial sweetener is a disaster, and at this point the OP definitely needs to lower his expectations for this brew, especially on serving a good brew by next week.

Nisk, the advise I gave is an inexact bandaid fix at best, and lots of work and inordinate cost. In the grand scheme of things, you might be better off just adding some extra water and pumpkin pie spice. The coffee is a pretty good idea too, it'll definitely offset the artificial sweetener.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Honestly Coffee has fixed 2 mediocre brews for me.

 

[nisk916]

It is actually cold and fully carbed. It was a basic pumpkin all grain recipe with NO added suger.
I do like the LME/DME idea, but I really don't know if it would be drinkable by Saturday. I may just do the dme and just take the loss for the weekend.

 

[cheezydemon3]

Hope it works out!!

 

[nisk916]

It is actually cold and fully carbed. It was a basic pumpkin all grain recipe with NO added suger.
I do like the LME/DME idea, but I really don't know if it would be drinkable by Saturday. I may just do the dme and just take the loss for the weekend.

 

[cheezydemon3]

It is actually cold and fully carbed. It was a basic pumpkin all grain recipe with NO added suger.
I do like the LME/DME idea, but I really don't know if it would be drinkable by Saturday. I may just do the dme and just take the loss for the weekend.

coffee!! it is your only hope and you know instantly whether it's drinkable or not.

 

[Yooper]

It is actually cold and fully carbed. It was a basic pumpkin all grain recipe with NO added suger.
I do like the LME/DME idea, but I really don't know if it would be drinkable by Saturday. I may just do the dme and just take the loss for the weekend.

I didn't realize it was carbed up.

I'm not sure what else to do. If it's too sweet to drink, then not much else you can do I guess.

Can you pour a glass, and try adding things to see if it helps? Like a shot of expresso (for Cheezy's sake), or some cinnamon, or something else? A squeeze of lemon? I have no idea, but maybe there is something that could make this a good drinkable beer in an easy way.

 

[nisk916]

Thanks for the help everyone. I did alot of searching first, but was not satisfied with most answers I found.

coffee!! it is your only hope and you know instantly whether it's drinkable or not.

So when you used coffee, what ratio did you use? I may experiment a little tonight with different things and see what may help.
What does anyone think about making a 30minute hop-tea? I dont want to overpower the pumpkin spice flavor, but maybe a little bitterness may partially balance it too.