Why is my Irish Red sooooo sweet?

[shauntraxler]

Cracked my first bottle of my Irish red today and I have to say, it's SWEET. And I mean, overly sweet. I used Nottingham dry yeast, and kept my ferm temps at 68-70. I have made many brews with this same method and none have been sweet. The recipe had 21.1 IBU and no adjuncts. Gravities were 1.064, and 1.014. It spent 14 days in the primary, then racked and bottled with turbinado sugar.

Oh, and it was a partial mash using a double infusion for a protein rest. My sacc rest was at 154 for 40 minutes.

If the full recipe needs to be posted let me know.

 

[Monkey55]

How long has it been in the bottle?
How's the carbonation?

E

 

[cms]

Did you measure the FG?

 

[shauntraxler]

Monkey: Head was about 3 inches tall. Has only been in the bottle 8 days but carbonation was moderate. I guess it could be some of the primer not yet eaten by the yeast.

CMS: In the OP I stated FG was 1.014.

 

[acefaser]

154 is on the sweeter side, but I am no expert.

 

[SwampassJ]

154 is on the sweeter side, but I am no expert.

154 should be fine.

How much crystal did you use?

 

[gr8shandini]

This one's pretty simple: not enough hops. 21 IBU for 1.064 is going to be pretty damned sweet no matter what. I use this chart often when creating or tweaking a recipe.

For my Irish red, I like to ride the line between "well balanced" and "slightly hoppy", but that's just me.

 

[beerkrump]

Recipe???

 

[shauntraxler]

Wow. I like to think I know at least 5% of what I'm doing is correct, but after this little brain fart, I'm not sure anymore. I can't believe I wasn't even thinking about the fact of Increasing malt (gravity) needs increasing bitterness. Hahahahaha. What a moron.

Oh, and I only used 8oz crystal so it's definitely not that.

Thanks for the chart. I've actually used it before, but it completely slipped my mind in this occasion.

 

[dcp27]

21 IBUS in a 1.064 beer shouldn't be super sweet. thats around par with belgian dubbels and weizenbocks. is it any sweeter than one of those?

 

[gr8shandini]

He also mentioned that he mashed rather hot and thus likely has more unfermentables in the mix. Especially compared to dubbels that use candi sugar. Also, there's the management of expectations. I find dubbels and weizenbocks to be somewhat sweet, but not overly so. But if someone handed me one and I thought it was going to be a fairly dry style like an Irish red, my first thought would be "my god, this is malty as hell."

 

[dcp27]

I find dubbels and weizenbocks to be somewhat sweet, but not overly so. But if someone handed me one and I thought it was going to be a fairly dry style like an Irish red, my first thought would be "my god, this is malty as hell."

exactly why I made reference to them. was curious if was on the same level as them or if it was even more. 1.014 isn't that high of a level of unfermentables and far from a cloyingly sweet level. I'd wait til the recommended 3 weeks of carbonating time is up before I get too caught up in how it tastes now.

 

[shauntraxler]

I don't think my mash was overly hot. I actually get consistently lower mash temps using beer smiths numbers. So likely, the mash was somewhere in the range of 151-152.

As far as the comparison to dubbels, etc... This beer is SWEET. There is NO balance. I love dubbels and similar brews and this tastes nothing of the sort.

However, I think it will be wise to RDWHAHB, and just chill for another 2 weeks before I crack another one. I had a nearly undrinkable banana's foster brew I attempted that is actually quite good now after 3 months in the closet. So thanks, to both of you, and if you, or anyone for that matter, has any more input, I would love to hear it.