Over Attenuation out of nowhere

[sicktght311]

Anyone else experience a random point where your fermentation starts to overattenuate?

Theres been no change to my brewing equipment, i've verified all of my temp probes are reading correctly with multiple different thermometers including a thermopen, same process short of + or - 10 minutes here and there with mash times, or ramp up temps to mash out, no changes in recipe. But for whatever reason, this year i'd say the last 5 or 6 brews i've done, i've seen higher than expected attenuation, and even over attenuation of beers i've brewed before in the past.

For instance the last 3 beers i brewed massively over attenuated. None of these had added sugars in them. Purely all from grain
1) Pina Colada Milkshake IPA (which had half a pound of lactose in a 5gal batch) - Final Gravity of 1.010. Mash temp was 154. Yeast was S04 at 64 degrees
2) Summer Wheat Beer - Final Gravity of 1.008 - Mash Temp of 152. Yeast was S05 at 68 degrees
3) NEIPA - No Lactose - Again final Gravity of 1.008 with S04 at 64 degrees. Same mash temp of 154.

For reference, last NEIPA i brewed before this sudden overattenuation finished at 1.022 with .75lbs of lactose in 5 gallon batch. Same process, same recipe just with added lactose. Same yeast

I figured it HAD to be an issue with temp, but i've triple checked over and over and everything is correct, and the process is no different than what it was before. I even went so far as to mashing in with the strike water about 10 degrees higher than my target mash temp so i could make sure that my mash immediately settled at my target temp, and then started recirculating. Instead of strike temp at my desired mash temp, doughing in, and then immediately recirculating to quickly get it back up to target mash temp

3 vessel Kal style electric brewing system

 

[sicktght311]

These 3 examples were usually around 84-86% attenuation, where as everything brewed prior to this with similar methods/recipes, averaged 70-75% attenuation

 

[Dgallo]

Have you tested your hydrometer to see if reading water at 1.000?

Have you recently used any STA-1 positive yeast strains or Brett’s in your fermenters or equipment you use for your starters?

have you upped your dryhops recently and experience a lot of hop creep?

 

[sicktght311]

-Hydrometer is calibrated. A couple of times now just to be sure hah
-No STA-positive yeast strains, or Brett yeasts. I deal exclusively in S04 or S05 for 90% of my non NEIPA recipes, and then any other yeasts are the typical NE yeasts depending on availability (London III, Imperial Juice, Wyeast British V, etc). Been using S04 for NEIPAs recently more because of the limited availabiltiy locally of liquid yeast
-Same dryhop schedules that i always do, no changes in recipes, just different types of hops rotated in and out. The American Wheat had no dryhopping

 

[JoeMamasIPA]

Send your 3 vessel electric brew system to me and I will look it over. I am sure I can find the problem given a couple months of "troubleshooting". On a more serious note, do the beers taste okay? For reference, my NEIPA's usually finish around 1.012 before taking into account any hop creep.

 

[deuc224]

I had a chocolate stout rip thru in 3 days. Scared the hell out of me cuz thats the fastest ive ever had anything happen. It would have kept going but i cold crashed it and trub/yeast dumped it that same day.

 

[Dgallo]

I had a chocolate stout rip thru in 3 days. Scared the hell out of me cuz thats the fastest ive ever had anything happen. It would have kept going but i cold crashed it and trub/yeast dumped it that same day.

i hope you’re kegging if you purposely halted fermentation

 

[LuukGx]

I had a chocolate stout rip thru in 3 days. Scared the hell out of me cuz thats the fastest ive ever had anything happen. It would have kept going but i cold crashed it and trub/yeast dumped it that same day.

This happened to me this week with S04, chewed thru a 1.072 stout in 2 days @ 66F..

 

[deuc224]

i hope you’re kegging if you purposely halted fermentation

Sure did and enjoying it as i type this. Its a super smooth drinker but the yeast ate thru all the sugar I wanted to taste some kinda sweetness but its just a smooth dark chocolate bar with close to no sweetness lol. Ill learn next time i guess

 

[deuc224]

This happened to me this week with S04, chewed thru a 1.072 stout in 2 days @ 66F..

Im really trying to make sweet beers now and am worried they will all attenuate really low. I know this isnt a science but I have a grapefruit hefe for my brother going right now that i want to make perfect for him, he actually enjoyed this dark chocolate bar of a beer i made, its a good beer but just not sweet lol.

 

[RM-MN]

Look hard at your environment. What has changed in your neighborhood? There are wild yeasts that can cause over-attenuation and a change out of your control can cause them to multiply. I have had a problem with overcarbonation. My beers would slowly gain carbonation over a period of weeks, going from perfect carbonation to over carbonated to bottle bombs. I finally decided that the wild yeast that caused that came from the neighbor's pile of silage as since he died and there is no more silage, my beers are under carbonated due to my attempt to avoid the over carbonation.

 

[Miraculix]

Did you check your hydrometer with a calibrated sugar solution? I had a hydrometer once that measured water correctly but the higher the og was, the bigger the error got. I created a defined solution with table sugar and water by weight and then I saw that this hydrometers was way off, and the error was not linear.

 

[deuc224]

Look hard at your environment. What has changed in your neighborhood? There are wild yeasts that can cause over-attenuation and a change out of your control can cause them to multiply. I have had a problem with overcarbonation. My beers would slowly gain carbonation over a period of weeks, going from perfect carbonation to over carbonated to bottle bombs. I finally decided that the wild yeast that caused that came from the neighbor's pile of silage as since he died and there is no more silage, my beers are under carbonated due to my attempt to avoid the over carbonation.

Yup, ur right, looking back at all the things i did, i overpitched the starter i made, was supposed to be 0.9 and i made a 1.1, so makes sense it ripped thru it.