US-05 Finished way too dry

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jjones17

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Hello everyone! I use dry yeasts only simply because of the lack of availability of liquid in my area. Up until my last brew, I have used Coopers yeast. Now that I have a good online supplier, I picked up some US-05, Nottingham, S-33, and Windsor to experiement with.

Well, my last brew was a fairly simple Honey Pale Ale, using US 2 Row, crystal 10L, crystal 20L, and about 4% of my fermentables as honey.

Beersmith default on US-05 was 75% apparante atten, however I got more like 85%. My beer finished about .8% higher ABV than planned, but it should not have made a huge diff in flavour IMO. The beer is quite dry, finished at 1.007, and the flavour balance is a bit too dry and very low body. I let a buddy try one, and he agreed.

Has anyone else found this with US-05? This may have something to do with the fact that I used Coopers, and my Grain Bill's on my recipes have always resulted in a good balance of malt flavour and body. Perhaps I should try this again, adding more crystal malts to compensate for the dryness of the US-05. What a monster yeast.
 
I've found that even when a beer made with 05 finishes at the same FG as another yeast would, the 05 beer tastes and feels drier.
 
Correct me if i am mistaken, but won't honey ferment out and dry out your beer?

Yes, much agreed. Yet, I have made beers with much higher amts of honey as a % of fermentables (like 8-10%) and they did not taste as dry as this one. I used coopers yeast for those beers.
 
4% Honey is not very much.

Nottingham is a bit dryer than US-05. I did a split batch of APA it it was one point lower than US-05. It left the hops more subdued than US-05 as well.

I've used S-33 twice now. once in a APA it it finished higher than I wanted. Kind of sweet. I just used it in a Cream Stout that is now at high Kraeusen.

Windsor will leave a higher finishing gravity and it's buttery like S-04. I like it in oatmeal stouts.
 
I find that mashing temp makes a huge difference for me for the attenuation. Then add in the honey and you will dry a little bit more. In all though, I typically find that US-05 is the strongest yeast, S-04 is a hearty guy as well but tends to stop a little less attenuative. I like to use US-05 when I do up pale ales because I know that I can attenuate very well.

Conroe, that buttery is Diacetyl and can be avoided if you don't want it in your beer. If you like it then keep doing what you do though :mug:
 
I find that mashing temp makes a huge difference for me for the attenuation.

I think that has to be it. I've used 10% cane sugar with 5% crystal and it finished about the same FG with US-05 mashing at 150F for 60 min. I tend to adjust FG with crystal because most of my brews ended up dry. My new MLT helps because it holds temp better.
 
I use US-05 alot. Without using any simple sugars my typical finial gravity on 1.050 - 1.060 OG beers is around 1.008. I think getting a 1.007 FG after adding 4% honey is right in the ball park.
 
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