DIPA done at 1.020. How will amalyse enzyme affect this beer (residual sweetness)?

[gifty74]

Been trying for many many batches to nail a solid DIPA that is tailored just to me. Strong bitterness, great malt backbone, fruity hop character, nice finish, yada yada. Overshot OG on this batch (odd as I have beersmith and my brew house eff dialed in) and started at 1.088. Pearl malt base, light adjunct grains, massive late addition hops. Had a large (3.5L) starter of Wyeast 1318 and pitched that at 66F. Fermented well for about 7 days, but now it’s done at the typical for me and this yeast, 1.020. I’ve been reading about adding amalyse enzyme as this beer still has just a tad too much residual sweetness. I’d like to get to 1.014-1.016. Question is, is the amalyse enzyme this controllable? How much should I add? And the big question, will it only drop the gravity, or will the residual sweetness level also be reduced ever so slightly? That’s what I’m really after. Abv means nothing at this point.

 

[passedpawn]

In my experience it'll get you about 85% attenuation. That's 1.013. Others have reported different results ("did nothing", "attenuated to water", etc). Add a couple of tsp to a carboy and see what happens. Then report your results here:

Escape from Stuck Fermentation Mountain - AE to the Rescue!

In the future, consider replacing some of the grain with sugar to decrease the body of the beer.

 

[gifty74]

Yeah, did 10oz table sugar (3% of grist), but guess need to up that in the future. Maybe 6-8%?

 

[thehaze]

How warm did you mash? For a 1.088 DIPA, I would mash low 64-65C/147-149F and long and possibly add a bit of sugar. 1318 should attenuate well to around 75-80%, depending on your recipe, mash. temp, fermentation.

You say you fermented 7 days at 66F. Did you at any point raise the temperature to help the yeast to finish fermentation and clean after itself? I usually raise the temperature after the first 3 days.

 

[Comfort_Zone]

Personally I wouldn't worry about it. You're already just north of 9% abv. Finishing gravity tells you less about the finished product than you'd think.

 

[gifty74]

I hear ya, but before throwing in the towel and calling the batch done I like to be critical of the gravity check sample and I can definitely pick up more sweetness than I would like. I think another 6 pts would do it. How I got here really doesn't matter for this batch, but what I was looking for were experiences with amylase enzyme and if it only drops the FG, or if it will reduce the residual sweetness I'm picking up. Just needs to dry out that last little bit.

 

[gifty74]

How warm did you mash? For a 1.088 DIPA, I would mash low 64-65C/147-149F and long and possibly add a bit of sugar. 1318 should attenuate well to around 75-80%, depending on your recipe, mash. temp, fermentation.

You say you fermented 7 days at 66F. Did you at any point raise the temperature to help the yeast to finish fermentation and clean after itself? I usually raise the temperature after the first 3 days.

Yes, mashed at 149-150. Looks like I need to increase the table sugar content up in the 6-8% range. Looks like I got 76% attenuation out of this yeast this time. And for ferm temp, yes, started at 66, slowly raised to 71 at the end. Kept it around 68 for most of the time.

 

[thehaze]

" amylase enzyme " will help the yeast eat more of the sugars, but I don't think anyone can guess how much. It can go as low as 1.010, which might be too much.