Getting the FG down

[mew]

I'm planning a high(ish) OG pale ale with a lot of hop character (not enough to be an IPA, though) and I want the FG to be pretty low so that the hops shine through. I will be adding a small amount of crystal malt to give it some malt character, but other than the crystal I want it to be dry. I'll mash around 150, aerate, and maybe add some rice or corn for a more fermentable wort. My question is: will the addition of a pound of rice or corn help get my FG down? Any other ways to lower FG?

 

[mysterio]

Rice or corn will help, so will sugar. Many Belgian beers are nice and drinkable because they use a fair amount of sugar when brewing.

You could also use a highly attenuative yeast such as US-56 or Nottingham.

 

[clayof2day]

Aerate very well, pitch lots of yeast. That is the 2 best ways. Other than that, mash at a low temp, use sugar or honey (100% fermentable), just keep it under 10-20%. Good luck.

 

[mew]

I'm assuming if I go the sugar route it should be dextrose, or would sucrose keep away the cidery flavor in <15% doses? Thanks for the input!

I'm thinking of using Safale-04 because it's a high attenuator that I have on hand.

 

[clayof2day]

Dextrose would be fine, if you have table sugar on hand, you could use that, too. The only time you need to worry about a cidery flavor is when you have a major ammount of fermentables coming from the sugar.

 

[knipknup]

I jump in with the rest here and say:
1- add 4 oz corn sugar or table sugar to your 5 gallon batch
2- pitch lots of yeast, do a big starter that is fresh and healthy

 

[onecolumbyte]

Will adding sugar "let the hops shine thru" like mew wants? I know that addidng sugar will change the Hydro reading and the "apparent" attenuation and up the alcohol, but on an absolute basis the remaining unfermetables will be unchanged though they will be more dilute. So will this lead to a beer that focuses on hops or will it still be "sweet" but with more alcohol?

 

[stale]

the last 2 ales I've done I used a # of clover honey. It lightened the character but accenuated the hop flavors favorably besides upping the alchol content. I just bottle antoher pale ale using 2 #'s honey. Can't wait to see what the extra # will do. My little bro added regular sugar and it created a decidley cidery falvour, bordering on a mouth puckering zing. I also tried a # of brown sugar with a cidery sweet flavor. didn't care for either of those. didn't taste like beer!
ps. both of the last 3 beers have had an OG of 1.060 -1.073 and FG's of 1.006 -1.010

 

[Evan!]

Will adding sugar "let the hops shine thru" like mew wants? I know that addidng sugar will change the Hydro reading and the "apparent" attenuation and up the alcohol, but on an absolute basis the remaining unfermetables will be unchanged though they will be more dilute. So will this lead to a beer that focuses on hops or will it still be "sweet" but with more alcohol?

I think people here are just suggesting he up the ratio of fermentables to unfermentables. Given the ratio adjustment, it should let the hops shine through more, given that the extra alcohol balances out the residual sugars even more.

The other thing I'd recommend to the OP, if he's interested in letting the hops shine through, is going heavy on the flavor/aroma hops, and dry-hopping the hell out of it.

 

[mew]

The other thing I'd recommend to the OP, if he's interested in letting the hops shine through, is going heavy on the flavor/aroma hops, and dry-hopping the hell out of it.

I'm definitely going to add a bunch of flavoring and aroma hops to the boil. I might dryhop, too. Does dryhopping add any flavor, or is it just for aroma? (I've never done it before).

BTW, it seems odd that corn or table sugar would add a cidery characteristic but honey wouldn't, as they are all simple sugars.

 

[clayof2day]

Another way to increase the perception of a dry taste and hop "crispness" will be to increase the ppm of sulfate in your water. This can be done with gypsum (Calcium Sulfate). Don't change too much stuff all at once though. I say do the same recipe a lot and only change 1 thing at a time so you can see exactly what effect each change has. Take good notes and make sure its a recipe you really like!