I made a stout 3 weeks ago that essentially did not go to plan in various ways, and frankly has been a bit of a mess! - I was hoping to make a Cherry Choc RIS oat the lower end of the style's OG but with some good bitterness. I mashed @ 156 and my target OG was 1.086 with an est. FG of 1.024 and 65 IBU. I decided to FWH to try smooth out the bitterness but my measured OG was waaaay off! I tried compensating by giving it a 100 min boil and managed to get an OG of 1.080. I fermented for two weeks (2L starter) and had a very fast take off and aggressive fermentation with a blow out. I then added around 10oz of cherry juice concentrate, let that ferment out and then added 4oz of toasted cocoa nibs. Fermentation seems well and truly over now but I've only got an FG of 1.029. I'm going to end up with a bitterness ration of .770. Is this going to be a complete disaster? Is there anything I should/can do with it before I plan to bottle it tomorrow?
Stout IBU/gravity mess query
- Thread starter -Liam-
- Start date
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Well..."tomorrow" is nearly here, and I'm not aware of anything that's going to shift that ratio in the direction you're thinking by "tomorrow".
Time could be your friend. If you're convinced the FG is static, prime the batch and bottle it, set it somewhere civilized for beer, then pull a bottle in four weeks, chill it for a couple of days, and give it a try. Eventually I bet it'll settle down to something you'll enjoy - perhaps sooner than later.
fwiw, post-lupulin shift, you'd probably enjoy the first bottle
Cheers!
[edit] btw, a quick look around puts .77 inside the stout envelope anyway. if the FG isn't problematic (it is a bit on the heavy side) I'd say you'll likely have a great "bed time stout" there
