HUGE SG change in 1 week?

[srl135]

Soo just curious what is going on and how much longer my beer has to wait to be kegged.

Brewed up a Honey Amber, placed in primary last saturday (1/22), had an OG of 1.061 @ 77F (Recipe OG = 1.055), racked to secondary today and SG was 1.007 @ 70F (Recipe FG = 1.011). My question is how did i go all the way down to 1.007 in one week just in primary and already pass up the FG shown on the recipe?

I know that it probably wouldnt be exactly on recipe SG target, but damn! So now, how long do you suppose it should sit in the secondary prior to kegging? I did add some water (3/4 gallon) to the secondary per the recipe so that may increase the FG slightly, but i doubt it will change much since i suspect the yeast is still doin its thing to some extent. It is murky as hell right now so i do wanna leave it in the secondary.. thinking 2 weeks but thats part of the reason for my post.

Thoughts?

 

[SKMO]

My question is how did i go all the way down to 1.007 in one week just in primary and already pass up the FG shown on the recipe?

I know that it probably wouldnt be exactly on recipe SG target, but damn! So now, how long do you suppose it should sit in the secondary prior to kegging? I did add some water (3/4 gallon) to the secondary per the recipe so that may increase the FG slightly, but i doubt it will change much since i suspect the yeast is still doin its thing to some extent. It is murky as hell right now so i do wanna leave it in the secondary.. thinking 2 weeks but thats part of the reason for my post.

Thoughts?

The FG shown in the recipe was an ESTIMATE. Lots of room here to move some numbers around a few points, for about twenty different reasons but looks like you are darn close. The difference between .011 and .007 is completely insignificant.

Adding 3/4 gallon water will DECREASE your FG. Significantly probably, depending on your batch size. I've never seen a recipe that said to ADD WATER to the secondary, but I guess it's possible, but for what reason I could not imagine, unless you want watered down beer.

You might want to review that recipe, sounds pretty flakey to me.

 

[Bensiff]

That means your yeast were good and healthy and did there thing. Advertised attenuation is a general number, if you baby your yeast you can get them to go a lot higher than what Wyeast and White Labs say.

That said, just because it fermented out in a weekd doesn't mean the yeast are near done cleaning the beer up. Dump the secondary on beers like this, let it sit on the yeast cake for at least a few weeks after you hit your FG...hell forget about it for a month or two and it will be all good, maybe better.

 

[srl135]

Well it went to the secondary prior to me creating the post so leaving it in the primary is out of the question lol.

The directions did say to add some water to it in the secondary if the volume was less than 3 inches below the airlock, i did add some water and guess i was backwards on the gravity affects from doing so.

I am not too worried about watered down beer, because.. well its a little late to do anything about it although im not sure i needed to add any despite the recipe. FWIW the recipe came from my LHBS, from what Ive heard so far, there havent been any complaints from any of their beers.

Good to know it is possible to ferment that far in one week. I had my concerns on this batch due to the yeast putting out a strong sulfur smell in the first 36hrs of pitching, that smell diminished though in a couple days.

so you think a standard 2 weeks in the secondary will be plenty? Would it affect anything if i kegged it in 1 week rather than 2? 3 wks?

 

[Calder]

1.061 to 1.007; it's done. What was the yeast, that's great attenuation.

Despite what others' say, 1.007 and 1.011 are a lot different. I prefer 1.007, I like drier beers.

It's done, keg when ever you want. I would recommend leaving it in secondary until it is clear, otherwise you will just keep pulling the sediment out every time you pull a pint.

 

[Homebrewtastic]

Think of it like this. Your hydrometer measures the density of liquid. Water has a density of 1.000. When you add sugars to the water it thickens and increases the density. When the yeast eat the sugars the density decreases. 1 week is pretty standard for a beer of that strength.

I typically don't bother with a secondary fermentation. Especially when kegging. After primary fermentation has stopped (the krausen goes down and you get very little airlock movement) it's okay to go ahead and keg it. Inside the keg the remaining yeast will clean up after themselves and settle to the bottom. Also this way it's much easier to check the gravity with lower risk of infection (turn on the gas and hit the tap).

 

[srl135]

the yeast was White Labs California Ale V WLP-051
http://www.whitelabs.com/beer/strains_wlp051.html

First try with a liquid yeast, pretty pleased with it.

Hopefully i didnt water it down too much, but live and learn... im gonna cross my fingers that roughly 2/3-3/4 gallon addition didnt water down the taste. Hopefully it will clear up reasonably soon, it will be my first kegged beer. Just got my chest freezer setup and im excited to get it ready to drink.

 

[Bensiff]

Like others said, it is done fermenting, but it will take a while to clean up. I would get another brew going ASAP so you can let that one age out properly. Its very common to discover that you made a really good beer when you only have a few left leaving you to wonder why you didn't age it longer before drinking...so that said, get one going now so it can sit on the yeast in primary for a good 4-8 weeks so it will be nicely aged and ready to go when when you finish your current batch.