My FG is screwed up

[bornrg]

I have been brewing for over 2 years now. I started with extract brewing, then went to brew in a bag, then straight all grain, now I use a Electric herms system. out of around the 25 batches that I've brewed I have never gotten a final gravity below 1.025. I look at all these recipes and I see peoples final gravity in the 1.010 I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong or if they're just full of it. I use a 6 1/2 gallon carboy, I use an oxygen stone, a carboy heater, blow off tubes, and yeast starters. fermentation normally is between 70 and 74 degrees with no extremes. I normally ferment with wyeast 1056. I have used a refractometer and a hydrometer and both were calibrated correctly. Am I worred too much about the numbers? I always like the beer that a brew. I was just wondering if anyone had any suggestions how to get my final gravity a little lower. Im open to any ideas.

 

[Psylocide]

Well... I know I'm not full of it, because if my beers finished at 1.025, they would taste like crap.

What temp are you mashing at? Is your thermometer good?

At 70-74° (much higher than I'd go for most ales), you would think your fermentation would finish quickly and completely.

Sounds like something's wrong. A refractometer needs to be corrected for alcohol in solution with an online calculator. Are you doing that?

I find it weird that your hydrometer and refractometer would read the same after fermentation is completed. Something seems really off about that.

 

[Vamptrump]

A lot can factor in to FG not dropping (from what I understand, still relatively new). High OG tends to leave a higher FG from my experience. Also if you have things in the beer that can't be fermented by the yeast used it's going to cause your OG to be higher.

I know a recent brew I had that was an OG 1.062 finished at 1.004. It was mostly 2-row with very little honey malt.

I can't provide that much insight for you sadly, but at least wanted to chime in with low FG isn't a myth and I would love to see answers from others.

 

[jshathaway]

Are you using a refractometer when you're taking you FG reading? Just figured this out myself this weekend. Refractometer readings are hugely skewed when alcohol is present. I was reading 1.026 on my refractometer compared to 1.013 on my hydrometer.

 

[BrotherBock]

Only brew I had finish that high was an imperial stout. I suspect your instruments are off (somehow).

If you're pitching healthy yeast, oxygenating (even crappily), and brewing beer of low to moderate ABV, there's no reason you're beer should be finishing that high. Even with a high mash temp this seems like a crazy high FG to me.

I know it sounds dumb, but are you sure you're reading the instruments correctly? If that actually is your gravity, I guess start mashing at a lower temp. You can sub some of your grain bill for simple sugar. Use starters (if not already). Raise the temp of your fermenter a few degrees near the very end of fermentation. Other than that....who knows?

 

[philber]

Are you using a refractometer when you're taking you FG reading? Just figured this out myself this weekend. Refractometer readings are hugely skewed when alcohol is present. I was reading 1.026 on my refractometer compared to 1.013 on my hydrometer.

+1 to that. You can use a calculator like: http://onebeer.net/refractometer.shtml and derrive the actual hydrometer readings, but a hydrometer is more accurate with alcohol present.