Haven’t home brewed in forever. Just brewed a new batch. BIAB system, 10 gallon. Use a corona mill for very fine milling for BIAB. Usually mashed at 152 for standard beers but on my bigger OG beers my FG never got below 1.2 and so to compensate. I tried to mash this big DIPA at 145 to help get a lower FG. Double pitched Kviek Voss after rehydrating for 30min prior. It was 1.085 OG. Fermented at 70deg. And when I checked gravity at dry hop time after fermenting was done it was again at 1.021. Not hateful at 8.5% but confused why I can’t seem to break the barrier into the sub 1.02 on my bigger beers….
How to lower FG on big beers?
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Cheers!
Cheers!
Why did you put lactose into it? It's unfermentable.
It's basically like asking why your coffee is so sweet after adding four tablespoons of sugar.
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As @Miraculix pointed out, the lactose in that recipe is giving you 6-7 FG points alone. Subtracting that out you'd end with 1.015 or so for a FG.
Traditional big beers like English barleywine, Belgian tripel, etc., often utilize sugars to help make a "digestible" product.
Lactose is a 100% non-fermentable sugar. Used in dessert stouts.
Sucrose, glucose, fructose are 100% fermentable. Table sugar, candi sugar, invert sugar, honey, etc.
Lactose is a 100% non-fermentable sugar. Used in dessert stouts.
Sucrose, glucose, fructose are 100% fermentable. Table sugar, candi sugar, invert sugar, honey, etc.
26lb 2row
4lb flaked oats
3lb white wheat.
4lb flaked oats
3lb white wheat.
milkshake IPA’s use lactose to get the smoothness in the mouthfeel so that’s why I add it to this specific recipe.
DOH, lol. Idk why I forgot to take that lactose into account
yes .006 per lb let 5gal so 2lb in 10gal would equal that .006 gravity points to it so makes sense, would have been 1.079 OG and 1.015 FG w/o that lactose added. That’s for smacking the sense back into my foggy brewing brain. I guess taking 3-4 yrs off will do that haha.
And as has been pointed out, lactose also adds to final gravity. Close to 8 points for this recipe. I'm not sure that I would want a beer like this to finish lower than about 1.025.
edit - too slow
I did my first dry hop addition last night and the sample tasted pretty damn good already so I’m sure it’ll be just fine after double dry hop additions are done!
You can drop the mash temp even lower - 147, 148. If you can do a step mash that helps. As others have said, you can replace some of the grain with 100% fermentable sugar. I probably wouldn’t go more than about 10%. Also really build up your yeast. Make a big starter or I usually brew another beer first like a pale ale and then use all the yeast from that.
Adding simple sugars + mashing low + adding lactose is like adding lactic acid + baking soda + a ph stabiliser. Does not make any sense at all.
Choose which way to go mate, you cannot go two directions at the same time!
Choose which way to go mate, you cannot go two directions at the same time!
If you're keen on brewing big beers, I would strongly suggest looking at the literature available on, and the brewing philosophy employed in the making of, Belgian beers. Sure, they make great big beers, but they do it with an eye toward making "digestible" beers. We might call that drinkable, swillable, guzzle-able, etc beers. They're beers that compel you to have another glass. The Belgians don't just make big beers for the sake of making big beers, they first focus on making an enjoyable beer. Their often formidable size flows naturally from their brewing philosophy.
We've all been new brewers and we've all been seduced by the idea of making the biggest possible beer imaginable. People will love it and they'll respect me, right? It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. First, you need to make something that people are willing to guzzle.
Bluntly, any monkey with a mashtun, a 55lb sack of base malt, and a smack pack can make a big beer. The tricky bit is making a beer that you actually want to drink.
I'll argue that there are three hallmarks to a good big beer:
1) Restraint. A big beer, by definition, is going to blast a tremendous amount of flavor into your gullet. The trick is making that beer something that you want to enjoy by the glass. Huge flavors are great fun, but they can quickly become overwhelming, often tiresome. If you intend to brew big, you must consequently (and somewhat contrarily) think small. It's been years since I brewed above 1.060, but when I used to do that, I constantly thought about how to make the beer drinkable--how to make it taste big, but drink small. Does that make sense?
2) Adjuncts are not a dirty word, they're a useful ingredient. Rice, corn, and sugar make a well-constructed beer much lighter on the tongue. Cork sniffers like to sneer at adjuncts, but a savvy brewer uses them to make the impossible possible. Spend some time learning about the various sugars, better yet, learn how to make invert. It's really easy! Also, don't be afraid to use corn and rice. They're brilliant, if maligned, ingredients.
3) Know how to make beer. Newer brewers tend to get a pale ale or two under their belt, then immediately charge after a 1.139 coconut, marshmallow, rum, raspberry, bourbon aged, imperial hefeweizen. None of that makes any sense. There's a reason why people don't make that. It's not a good beer. Honestly, my big beers were kinda boring until I learned how to really make excellent 1.035-1.040 beers. Small beers expose all of your process errors and they force you to make shrewd, well-designed grists. If your passion is big beers, I'd strongly suggest that you first focus on tiny beers.
If nothing else, you'll learn a lot faster because you can keep your fermenter turning over much, much faster.
Anyway, that's some of what I know about big beers. I hope you found it useful.
We've all been new brewers and we've all been seduced by the idea of making the biggest possible beer imaginable. People will love it and they'll respect me, right?
It doesn't work that way, unfortunately. First, you need to make something that people are willing to guzzle.Bluntly, any monkey with a mashtun, a 55lb sack of base malt, and a smack pack can make a big beer. The tricky bit is making a beer that you actually want to drink.
I'll argue that there are three hallmarks to a good big beer:
1) Restraint. A big beer, by definition, is going to blast a tremendous amount of flavor into your gullet. The trick is making that beer something that you want to enjoy by the glass. Huge flavors are great fun, but they can quickly become overwhelming, often tiresome. If you intend to brew big, you must consequently (and somewhat contrarily) think small. It's been years since I brewed above 1.060, but when I used to do that, I constantly thought about how to make the beer drinkable--how to make it taste big, but drink small. Does that make sense?
2) Adjuncts are not a dirty word, they're a useful ingredient. Rice, corn, and sugar make a well-constructed beer much lighter on the tongue. Cork sniffers like to sneer at adjuncts, but a savvy brewer uses them to make the impossible possible. Spend some time learning about the various sugars, better yet, learn how to make invert. It's really easy! Also, don't be afraid to use corn and rice. They're brilliant, if maligned, ingredients.
3) Know how to make beer. Newer brewers tend to get a pale ale or two under their belt, then immediately charge after a 1.139 coconut, marshmallow, rum, raspberry, bourbon aged, imperial hefeweizen. None of that makes any sense. There's a reason why people don't make that. It's not a good beer. Honestly, my big beers were kinda boring until I learned how to really make excellent 1.035-1.040 beers. Small beers expose all of your process errors and they force you to make shrewd, well-designed grists. If your passion is big beers, I'd strongly suggest that you first focus on tiny beers.
If nothing else, you'll learn a lot faster because you can keep your fermenter turning over much, much faster.
Anyway, that's some of what I know about big beers. I hope you found it useful.
Remove the lactose. It's causing the brick wall that you are trying to break through.
And its gross too.
And its gross too.
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