First partial mash not from a kit (questions)

[hughey2000]

So I just made a Chrismas ale from a recipe I found on line. Ran into some issues with the gravitates though. Should have ended up at about 1.074 leaving me with an 8% beer. Instead I ended with an og of 1.102 which if continues correctly will give me almost a 10% beer. I've gone over everything and said ya maybe I added a little more of this or that but even if I added in all the variables of possible extras , malts and grains and honey, I would of had a efficiency of 96% to get this og. Is that even possible? Will this kill the yeast? (Calafornia ale yeast) Will it ever finish fermentation? Please if anyone has any ideas. Also maybe any ideas on the quantities of the other spices I should add to secondary fermenter, the list is at the end.


Christmas ale
Recipe........................ .................actualy used
og 1.074, fg 1.015........................Og 1.102. Fg ?
Pale malt 8.5 lb extract................. Briss golden light dme 5.5 lb
Munich: 1.75 lb.............................Light liquid extract 3.2 lb
60L caramel malt 1.75 lbs..............Munich: 1.75 lbs
Dark brown sugar .5 lbs.................60L caramel malt 1.75 lbs
Honey. .5 lbs...............................Regular brown sugar .5 lbs
..........................................Honey .5 to .6 lbs Last 10 min boil

2.4 oz marynka hops................. 2.4oz marynka hops. 60 min
1.2 oz marynka hops.................. 1.2oz marynka hops. 10 min

Chinook hops. 1 oz ............ 1 oz Chinook hops. Dry hop

Other into secondary, don't know all the quantities of these yet
Orange peal
Ginger root
Juniper berries. 10
Cardamom
Cloves. 10​

 

[MachineShopBrewing]

With just my memory and a calculator I came up with an OG of 1.1019 based on pppg on a 5 gallon batch with the ingredients you listed. So your gravity is about where it should be based on those ingredients.

With extract, efficiency has nothing to do with it. you should be at or close to 100% as all of the sugars are already there and you are just adding them to the kettle.


I really hope you pitched more than one tube of yeast. It won't kill the yeast, but you need a ton of yeast to ferment something with that kind of OG.

 

[BackAlley]

With just my memory and a calculator I came up with an OG of 1.1019 based on pppg on a 5 gallon batch with the ingredients you listed. So your gravity is about where it should be based on those ingredients.

With extract, efficiency has nothing to do with it. you should be at or close to 100% as all of the sugars are already there and you are just adding them to the kettle.


I really hope you pitched more than one tube of yeast. It won't kill the yeast, but you need a ton of yeast to ferment something with that kind of OG.

Good memory! Beersmith gives 1.098 and that's at 6g at the end of the boil.

+1 on the yeast quantity and some good aeration!

 

[hughey2000]

Think it will hurt to pitch another batch of yeast now? Or should i just let it be in the primary extra time. I'm guessing that ibrew must be not calculating quite right then. Maybe time to go with brew smith.

 

[signpost]

Yeah, the only efficiency to measure with extract is how efficiently you empty the container it came in.

The only thing I can think of is that maybe the original recipe intended for liquid malt extract to be used, and the bulk of the extract you used was dry. If I remember correctly, using equal weights of dry extract will give you a higher OG.

I can't think of anything else that would contribute to over-shooting your OG by that much. Unless you did a partial boil and didn't mix your top off water thoroughly before taking a gravity reading.

Also, it probably wouldn't hurt to pitch more yeast, but I'm not sure how much it would help either. Depending on how long it has been since you pitched the initial bunch of yeast, it has probably grown up enough more yeast cells to ferment the batch. You just might have some off-flavors due to the under-pitching.