If a beer tastes too sweet before bottling, will bottle conditioning help it or will it remain too sweet?
Quick Question
- Thread starter DNKDUKE
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
kombat
Well-Known Member
It will help a little, as carbonation imparts a bit of a sharp bitterness that will balance against the sweetness, but if your beer is sweet at bottling, it's critical that you be certain that fermentation is completely finished. Take a gravity reading, then take another one in 3-4 days. If they're different, then the yeast are still working. If they're the same, but unusually high, then your yeast may have stalled out, and we can help you figure out why (we'll need the recipe, mash schedule, yeast type, how the yeast was prepared, how much was pitched, aeration method and amount, that sort of stuff).
OP
OP
Well.......
This is kind of the "Paul Harvey" - rest of the story from another post.
I had been checking the gravity all along and it was stopped at 1.044. Of course I was taking the readings with a refractometer not a hydrometer.
SO....
I plugged the refract. number into Northern Brewers refract to hydro calculator which told me that the gravity was actually 1.005. I waited another week and bottled last night thinking that everything was OK.
But when I got to the little bit of wort that was left and tried it..........YIKES...
I'm thinking that the only thing left to do is wait and see...I WILL buy a hydrometer.
Other thoughts?
This is kind of the "Paul Harvey" - rest of the story from another post.
I had been checking the gravity all along and it was stopped at 1.044. Of course I was taking the readings with a refractometer not a hydrometer.
SO....
I plugged the refract. number into Northern Brewers refract to hydro calculator which told me that the gravity was actually 1.005. I waited another week and bottled last night thinking that everything was OK.
But when I got to the little bit of wort that was left and tried it..........YIKES...
I'm thinking that the only thing left to do is wait and see...I WILL buy a hydrometer.
Other thoughts?
flars
Well-Known Member
The beer you tasted was the beer left in the bottling bucket? Very probable the sweet taste was the priming sugar. The yeast will ferment this out during conditioning.
Randomnoob
Well-Known Member
Hmm. I heard somewhere that you should use a hydrometer after the beer is done fermenting. Refractometers are only accurate with unfermented wort.
True. Refractometers measure the refraction of light. They are designed for simple solutions of sugar in water, and alcohol screws that up as soon as fermentation gets underway. If you are brewing the same recipe repeatedly, you could know (from experience) what refractometer readings to expect at OG and FG, but hydrometers are much more straightforward to use...and cheaper too!
kombat
Well-Known Member
This is correct, but you can apply a correction to the refractometer number to derive the actual gravity value. There's a tool built-in to Beersmith to make this correction for you automatically. I hardly ever use my hydrometer anymore, especially not for 1 gallon batches where a gravity sample would be a significant portion of the whole batch (I don't return gravity samples back to the fermenter).
PlexVector
Mellow Goose Brewing
since i'm sampling to give it a taste, may as well pull a sample large enough to use a hydrometer.
OP
OP
When I rack to the bottling bucket, I make sure the wort going in is swirling to kinda mix together.
You think there could have been excess sugar on the bottom?
EDIT:
I actually was filling the last bottle and there was only about 5 oz left so that's what I sampled.
EDITX2
I use Simplicity for priming
flars
Well-Known Member
The residual in the bottling bucket for some of my beers taste much sweeter than others. IPAs' taste the sweetest. This is a combination of the priming sugar and the caramel steeping grains. A dry stout, with very little priming sugar, tastes hardly sweet at all.
You do dissolve the priming sugar in boiling water? This will making mixing into the beer more efficient than adding dry sugar. Priming sugar that does not go into solution will drop out due to the greater density. This will end up in the bottom of the bucket.
What is Simplicity? edit: Got it candy syrup.
It is likely you were just tasting the priming sugar in a flat green beer.
Last edited:
MrHopScotch
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2014
- Messages
- 132
- Reaction score
- 25
This. It's possible you could have had an under attenuated beer already but even the best beers taste a little sweet when I drink the leftover from a bottling session. Rich malty sweet probably won't go away, but a faint, simple sugar sweetness usually will. As others have said, carbonation and cooler temps help too.
OP
OP
So (of course- we $
OP
OP
I opened a bottle and took a gravity reading with a hydrometer. With the priming sugar it read 1.022. Maybe a little high but not terribly excessive.
I think I'm just being a worrying woman......and I'm not.......a woman that is
I think I'm just being a worrying woman......and I'm not.......a woman that is
Randomnoob
Well-Known Member
But I got my refractometer for Christmas. So really, it was cheaper than the two hydrometers I've purchased.
Yeah, me too.
Once you've added the bottling sugar, you cant take hydrometer readings. The carbonation will push the hydrometer up and mess up the readings
PlexVector
Mellow Goose Brewing
But I got my refractometer for Christmas. So really, it was cheaper than the two hydrometers I've purchased.
Hey, me too!
