Cream Ale

Brewed a cream ale, overshot the gravity, OG 1.060.

The recipe is as follows:

12 2 row
1.25 flaked maize
.5 cane sugar.

mashed at 149f.
Initial ferm done at 55f German Ale yeast

FG is 1.015

Thought ferm was stuck so I threw in a healthy 05 starter a week ago and left out at room temp. No change in gravity so it’s done.

My question is: does that FG seem right based on all the fermentables?

How are you taking your gravity readings?

That does seem a bit high, but have you tasted it yet? Does it have too much body?

The attenuation is 74%, which is at the lower end of the printed expected attenuation for WLP003 German Ale II Yeast, but still in the range of 73-80.  Not sure if this is the yeast you used.

Taking reading with a calibrated hydrometer

Yest is Wyeast 1007

Haven’t tasted yet. I’ll carb first and I’m sure it’ll be good. Just trying to figure out why it’s not drier.

Big beer at 1.060, so much sugar to eat, yeast eventually pushed back from the table, put on sweatpants and hit the couch.

1.060?  Sorry, your explanation doesn’t seem likely, unless there was no initial starter.

Nothing about this seems right.  There’s no reason the German ale yeast wouldn’t finish lower and especially no reason a US05 krausening wouldn’t bring it down.  Only thing I can think of is using a refractometer instead of a hydrometer.  Sorry I’m of no help, but I would be interested in learning the answer should someone think of it.

And he said he’s using a calibrated hydrometer

I glossed over the part about pitching additional yeast.  Does seem odd you couldn’t crank out a couple more points with the new yeast.

Seems strange to me. Is the thermometer you used to check the mash temp accurate?

Which says to me it’s the wort, not the yeast.

Did you do a forced ferment test?

Yeah, that was my assumption, the only reason I could see for it to crap out early with that mash temp and grist was an insufficient pitch calculated for the original target gravity.  If a starter was involved, ignore me.

Oops I missed that too.  Just ignore everything I’ve posted in this thread.

used a 3-day starter for the initial 1007 and then a 1-day starter for the 05, dumped it in when it was most vigorous upon swirling about in the flask.

Everything went smoothly with mash, boil, and then ferm. Temp stable at 55, then at 73 with the second yeast.

I only have a hydrometer, but I calibrate it with water and it zeros out. Adjusted for temp. Never tried another measurement tool.

Seems like it was all fermentable, 2 row, sugar, maize, and the 149 mash temp, so should have finished very low I would think. Maybe it’s time to invest in some new measurement tools.

I’d start by confirming that the thermometer is correctly calibrated.  But it might not be related  to instruments.  How are you measuring/sampling the mash temperature?  Are you recirculating?  If not, are you sure the point where you’re taking the temperature is representative of the temperature throughout the whole mash bed?  If you’re really mashing just a few degrees higher,  say 153F, then that’s pretty respectable attenuation you got.  (Unlike with my previous posts in this thread my brain is working now.  I’ll stand by this.)

Not that I think it’s the issue here, but using a starter with dry yeast can result in poorer performance

What was the result of testing the thermometer?

Decided to run this through BrewersFreind and based upon 74% efficiency in a 5.5 gallon batch it projects OG of 1.071 and FG of 1.015 with WY1007 yeast.

So seeing that, you may have undershot your gravity, but still close to projections.