Raising specific gravity...

[~Botanist~]

Hello all, I hope you are all doing well today.

I am a beginner and need a little help/advice.

I started with a wine conc kit and a beer kit. The wine sg has been fine so far, but the beer I am a little worried about.

The beer was a chamomile wheat kit from my local brewstore. On the recipe it said the starting sg should be 1.047-1.050. My starting gravity was 1.020. The brew has fermented in the primary already, and I racked it into the secondary yesterday. When checking the sg during racking, it had dropped to 1.010, which my chart told me is equal to about 1.5% abv.

According to the og of the recipe, it should finish with ~5% abv, which I would much prefer to 1.3%.

My question is, is there a way to increase the abv by adding dextrose or something else before the last of the yeast die? I got the idea from Ed Worts Apfelwein recipe, so thanks Ed! I will also be making a batch of Apelwein in about 20 min

Any help is appreciated.

Be safe

~B~

 

[RodfatherX]

You're gonna need to post your recipe.....so that we can figure out what happened and how to help.


BTW welcome to HBT

 

[DeadYetiBrew]

Hello all, I hope you are all doing well today.

I am a beginner and need a little help/advice.

I started with a wine conc kit and a beer kit. The wine sg has been fine so far, but the beer I am a little worried about.

The beer was a chamomile wheat kit from my local brewstore. On the recipe it said the starting sg should be 1.047-1.050. My starting gravity was 1.020. The brew has fermented in the primary already, and I racked it into the secondary yesterday. When checking the sg during racking, it had dropped to 1.010, which my chart told me is equal to about 1.5% abv.

According to the og of the recipe, it should finish with ~5% abv, which I would much prefer to 1.3%.

My question is, is there a way to increase the abv by adding dextrose or something else before the last of the yeast die? I got the idea from Ed Worts Apfelwein recipe, so thanks Ed! I will also be making a batch of Apelwein in about 20 min

Any help is appreciated.

Be safe

~B~

If it was an extract kit the odds are you didn't mix the top up water well with the wort. Meaning that the reading you got was watered down. The best thing to do is taste it. If it tastes fine leave it. If it was extract it's HIGHLY doubtful that your SG missed by .030. I personally would leave it alone and assume i hit target SG, and bottle when the time comes.

Dextrose isn't highly recommended for beer (except for carbonating), it dries it out and leaves an off flavor, at least in the amount you'd have to use (you'd get swill or something close to). It's more acceptable to add more DME so that you wont sacrifice the beer flavor only enhance it. Each different variety of sugar can be used to enhance beer flavor, in the right amounts.

 

[EvilTOJ]

Also, the yeast don't die when the sugar is gone, they just go to sleep and drop out of suspension.

 

[~Botanist~]

RodfatherX - Here's the recipe for you Thanks for the welcome too, btw.

DeadYetiBrew - Thanks for the advice, it makes me feel a little better. Also good to know that dextrose isn't the way to go for brew. In my newbness I've got to ask, whats DME?

OK, here's the Chamomile Wheat recipe I followed.

6.6lbs liquid wheat malt extract(Briess CBW non-diaastatic unhopped bavarian wheat)
.5lb crushed munich malt
.5lb crushed wheat malt
.25lb aromatic malt, crushed
.5lb flaked wheat
.25 oz crystal hops, boiled 60 min
.5 oz tettnang hops, boiled 30 min
1 tsp irish moss, last 20 min of boil
.5 oz vanguard hops, last 15 min of boil
.5 oz chamomile, added last 10 min of boil

Used Wyeast Bavarian Wheat Yeast #3056

OG: 1.047-1.050
FG: 1.008-1.015

Instructions basically say steep grain in 2g of 150 degree water for 30 min. Add malt extract and hops according to schedule, boil 60 min total. Chill, top up, pitch yeast. Rack when bubbles are 2-3 min apart, bottle @ 4 min apart and stable below 1.015. Prime with 3/4cup corn sugar.

Thanks all

B

 

[MX1]

In my newbness I've got to ask, whats DME?

Still a real newb here but i think it means Dark Malt Extract. Please wait until someone with exp. verifies this.

TIm

 

[~Botanist~]

EvilTOJ - Thanks for clearing that up. I remeber that, just wasn't thinking when I wrote it. I have considered making my own cultures from the yeast packets I buy, as that should be no problem since I've kept and grown cultures of all kinds of stuff in microbiology class at school, but they are so cheap it wouldn't be worth risking contaiminating the other ingredients which cost much more than the yeast, so I'll stick with packets for now.

Thanks and be safe

B

 

[EvilTOJ]

DME is Dry Malt Extract. The recipe is correct, you'll get about 5% ABV out of this batch. It's pretty hard to not get fermentables out of extract. It's only when doing All Grain that the sugars available become variable.

I use dry yeast and liquid yeast. I use the dry yeast for every day ales, but use (and wash) the liquid yeast for specialty beers like hefe's, belgians, and lagers. When liquid yeast is 6.50 a vial, damn right I'll save it! Sounds like you know all about the care and feeding of yeast cultures.

 

[MX1]

DME is Dry Malt Extract. The recipe is correct, you'll get about 5% ABV out of this batch. It's pretty hard to not get fermentables out of extract. It's only when doing All Grain that the sugars available become variable.

I use dry yeast and liquid yeast. I use the dry yeast for every day ales, but use (and wash) the liquid yeast for specialty beers like hefe's, belgians, and lagers. When liquid yeast is 6.50 a vial, damn right I'll save it! Sounds like you know all about the care and feeding of yeast cultures.

Damn, I was so close...but that is how you learn.

Tim

 

[malkore]

as stated, your OG reading was simply wrong. its VERY hard to mix 2 gallons of boiled wort into 3 gallons of cold water. luckily fermentation will do the mixing for you.

when its a kit like that, you really cannot miss the OG unless you add too much or too little top off water (i.e only 4.5 gallons, or 5.5+gallons)

 

[~Botanist~]

its VERY hard to mix 2 gallons of boiled wort into 3 gallons of cold water

Does that go for cooled wort as well, as I cooled the 2g w/a wort chiller before topping up. I guess I am asking if by boiled you mean still hot, or just having completed the boiling process without reference to the temperature?

Thanks

B

 

[Brewmasters Warehouse]

That pretty much goes for anytime that you are mixing. The wort will tend to stay at the bottom of the water so when you take a reading after mixing most of the sugars are still in at the bottom and not mixed throughly throughout the wort. After adding the top off water you have to stir the wort a lot in order for a proper reading to take place. With an extract kit I would always assume that you are hitting your SG and only worry about the FG.

 

[~Botanist~]

Meyer817 - Right on, thanks for the info! That makes a lot of sense. So it sounds like w/a kit it isn't crucial to mix then if you just run with the given SG, however, if you weren't using extract you would definatley want to mix throughly to check SG, right?

Thanks

B

 

[EvilTOJ]

If you're not using extract, then you'd be doing all grain batches. The sugars are already quite evenly mixed from the boil, so it's not necessary then either.

The most important aspect of specific gravity is to make sure fermentation is complete. Knowing the original gravity is nice so you can figure alcohol content (and when doing AG to check your efficiency) but the end specific gravity is more important.

 

[~Botanist~]

Thanks EvilTOJ, btw, whats the TOJ stand for?

Good to know that I won't have to mix a lot of things .

I was reading a homebrew book I got that describes all the ways to germinate and dry grains to get your starches to sugars. So its possible just to boil grains to convert without germinating and kilning? Also, I only have a 5g steel boiling pot, and don't have the 200+ for a fancy unit. Is it possible to boil half the grain at a time and combine the results before topping up w/plain cool water?

I've also been reading that you need to boil your top up water for sterility. I am using RO water fresh from the spigot into a sterilized container, should I still boil?

Thanks

B