OG way too high - suggestions?

[barney800]

Hello,

I've just put my first partial-mash batch in the fermenter and the OG is way too high for the style. I think the reason behind this is that I accidentally set the efficiency too low in the calculator I used; I probably got around 86% mash efficiency but had it set to 35% in the calculator. I was trying to make an English style best bitter, but am now going to end up with something far too strong and not bitter enough. Does anyone have any suggestions of what to do with this batch?

My current ideas are:

1) Leave it as it is - I think it'll still be drinkable
2) Add more water to the fermentor to reduce the final ABV, but also make it even less bitter
3) Add more hops (either dry hops or some kind of hop tea) to make it more bitter and shoot for more of an IPA style instead

Cheers!

The recipe was:

2.8kg Maris Otter Pale
0.2kg Crystal 50L
1kg DME - Pilsen - (late addition)
0.55kg DME - Light - (late addition)

25g East Kent Goldings 60 min
20g East Kent Goldings 20 min
20g East Kent Goldings 10 min
8g Fuggles 10 min

Wyeast - British Ale 1335

Intended OG 1.044
Intended IBU 35.91
Measured OG 1.068
Probable IBU 25.04

 

[ong]

If you just put it in the fermenter, you could probably bring it back to the boil and add more hops. I haven't had great luck with hop teas. Or just drink it as a malt bomb. Maybe you could throw in fruit in secondary!

 

[Hello]

Top up on water if you want then taste it after primary fermentation is done. If it's malty then dry hop. Same applies even if you don't top up to being it down to the gravity you wanted.

 

[barney800]

Thanks for the advice! Unfortunately I didn't check the gravity until after pitching the yeast so bringing it back to the boil isn't an option. Would there be any advantage to diluting the wort now, at the beginning of fermentation? Otherwise it sounds like the best strategy is (as ever) wait and see how it turns out.

 

[Queequeg]

Top up with water and then add bitter hop extract. Then dry hop with 1/2 oz.

 

[BigFloyd]

I'd leave it be.

First, with extracts the measured OG can be off due to the extract not being 100% mixed in even with thorough stirring. You may not be as high as you think.

Second, you've got a fair amount of hops in there for an ESB. Tinkering with a beer in an attempt to "salvage" it often leads to a worse result.

 

[Hello]

I'd leave it be. No need to mess with hop extracts.

 

[JohnSand]

You can try both. I have added water or hop tea to the fermenter with mixed results, but no failures. I have also added water at bottling. I too made a batch that was too high on OG. I decided to bottle half of the batch as is, half watered down. I added the water to the bottles first. Both halves worked out well.

 

[barney800]

Thanks again everyone. I think I'll leave it to ferment then try one of the options suggested here, depending on how it turns out. I'll post back the results. At least I've learnt that I can get a decent efficiency from my mash.

 

[kenmcchord]

I'd leave it be.

Tinkering with a beer in an attempt to "salvage" it often leads to a worse result.

+1

Drink it, after all you still made beer.

 

[HopTonger]

Same thing just happened to me - brewed an Oktoberfest and my OG reached 1.070 - I got a little carried away with my decoction time and I over-achieved my efficiency. I went the route of topping it up with water since my final volume was also a little lower than expected. I sleep just fine at night with my decision on that.


Sent from my iPad using Home Brew

 

[barney800]

Out of interest, a few people have mentioned getting "mixed results" when adding a hop tea. What exactly is meant by this? Did it not increase the bitterness, or did it perhaps adversely affect the character of the beer in some other way? Certainly in my case diluting the beer is not a problem, as the ABV is likely to be higher than I want anyway, so I could happily add a whole 5l (a gallon or so) of hop tea and still not dilute it too much. I could even do a 60 minute boil when making a hop tea and mirror the relative hop additions in the original boil.

 

[barney800]

I thought I'd post an update in case anyone comes across this in the future.

In the end I dry-hopped with 28g of East Kent Goldings for a week, then added 5l of boiled water before bottling. The beer came out OK and isn't obviously under-bittered. It wasn't quite the style I was aiming for, it's still a little strong and the balance isn't quite right, but it's perfectly drinkable and isn't completely unlike strong English ales I've had in the past.

Now I've learnt my lesson from this mistake, I'll have to see what mistake I can make with the next batch!

 

[JohnSand]

Sorry for the late reply. My mixed results were that it worked okay once, and once it didn't save the beer. Glad you had decent results.