Brown ale help

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bike2brew

Hops Kitchen Brewing
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I have a Brown ale in the fermenter where the gravity suddenly took off and ran away. Here's a link to the file. The recipe is essentially 7 lbs pale ale, 3 lbs Briess Ashburne and 2lbs Carabrown. Mashed 60 min @ 152-3, w/pH ~ 5.2, US 05 yeast. As you can see in the data sheet the fermentation began steadily but picked up in last day or so. The sharp rise is the response following 5 oz maltodextrin. I was especially careful with brewing hygiene going directly from kettle to fermenter.

Thoughts and ideas welcome

 
Thoughts and ideas welcome

Is your big concern about why the gravity dropped down to 1.005? Have you verified the gravity with a hydrometer reading?

I don't quite understand why the mini SG graph on the left seems to show a steadily rising gravity. Though I don't know how the SPARKLINE formula used works or if the maltodextrin addition would screw that up.
 
Yes. I added the MD to retard the dropping gravity @ 1.005 it was well below my predicted value showing 91% attenuation and little body. The jump in the graph shows that effect. I am at a loss to understand the run away fermentation. The Ashburne malt is reported to be more dextrinus so really counter intuitive to my expectations.

Just noticed that this link and graph is updating real time. 😀
 
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Are you talking the runaway from 12/3 to 12/5 where it went from 1.029 to 1.005? If so, my guess is the krausen may have crashed and the Tilt got covered with it and was throwing off readings.
 
Thanks, That's a good hypothesis. However my taste test seemed to suggest a well-attenuated beer without much body heading towards hop water with a slight hint of chocolate. The MD brought it back into range and has restored some of the lost body. I'm going to try increasing the Ashburne malt a bit next brew and get the mash up closer to 154 F to see if there's improvement.
 

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