Why is my beer finishing so low???

[peterj]

I was thinking of racking to a secondary when it hits FG. Since you remove the fermentable wort from the bulk of the yeast I wouldn't expect to see much more of a gravity drop if you rack at 1.014. I would expect it to go to 1.012 but I've never needed to rack early nor have I tried it.

If bottling I would use a little less sugar expecting the wort to ferment a little bit more and the extra sugar would just increase CO2 volumes above desired levels. If it was my beer I wanted to finish I would bottle at 1.014 and sugar amounts to get me at the lower end of the CO2 volumes for the style. I'd rack to a secondary first though for a couple days them bottle. You will still have enough yeast to carbonate it may just need to stay at 75 for the full 3 weeks most people cite.

No, this would not work at all. The beer would absolutely not stop fermenting just because you take the beer off of the yeast cake. The yeast in the cake is mostly dormant anyway, and there would still be more than enough yeast in solution to continue fermenting just fine. If you bottled it with fermentable sugar still in solution, the yeast would just end up eating all of that sugar anyway plus the priming sugar. So you would end up with the same FG regardless and probably overcarbonation as well.

You should always encourage the yeast to fully ferment all of the sugar in the wort that they possibly can before you bottle. The solution to raise the FG is to put less fermentable and more unfermentable sugar in the wort. As many have said this can be achieved by mashing higher and cutting the simple sugar addition.

 

[joshesmusica]

yeah kinda what i was thinking. it makes no sense to attempt to cut fermentation short over fixing your mashing practices. it's just creating more possible problems instead of actually fixing the original cause.

 

[DurtyChemist]

No, this would not work at all. The beer would absolutely not stop fermenting just because you take the beer off of the yeast cake. The yeast in the cake is mostly dormant anyway, and there would still be more than enough yeast in solution to continue fermenting just fine. If you bottled it with fermentable sugar still in solution, the yeast would just end up eating all of that sugar anyway plus the priming sugar. So you would end up with the same FG regardless and probably overcarbonation as well.

You should always encourage the yeast to fully ferment all of the sugar in the wort that they possibly can before you bottle. The solution to raise the FG is to put less fermentable and more unfermentable sugar in the wort. As many have said this can be achieved by mashing higher and cutting the simple sugar addition.

This is why I said I would try it and check gravities.

 

[beergolf]

Your second option is to check gravitates and when it is where you want it you could rack it off the yeast.

This is really bad advice. If you rack it , there will be some yeast there, which will continue to eat the fermentable sugars. If you try this and bottle, you are almost surely to get bottle bombs. You cannot stop the yeast from eating until there is nothing more for it to eat. If his beers are continually finishing lower than that, then that issue needs to addressed. Trying to control the yeast will not work unless you pasteurize the brew to kill the yeast.

 

[DurtyChemist]

That was kinda my point about bottling, racking it isn't going to save you from bottle bombs. Though the question still remains I suppose. I personally would rather just fix the mash/boil/fermentables than trying to stop fermentation. It just sounds like bad brewing practice.

If you rack to secondary and it doesn't change gravities what danger would be bottle bombs? Still I would make it without the sugar first.

 

[charliethebum]

I had this same problem before I started doing a mash out. if you don't raise your mash temp (I want to say at least 168?) before lautering , or shortly thereafter, your wort will continue converting until you do raise the temp, resulting in more fermentable sugars.

 

[aprichman]

165F and above will denature the amylase

 

[jahdub]

If you rack to secondary and it doesn't change gravities what danger would be bottle bombs? Still I would make it without the sugar first.

It IS going to change gravity. Just racking off the yeast cake isn't going to stop fermentation. He must lower fermentables, if he wants a higher FG.

If racking off the yeast cake would stop fermentation, everyone that bottled would have flat beer, because the yeast would not ferment the priming sugar.