I have a double ipa recipe from a local brewery I’m going to try which lists finishing gravity at 1.015. My yeast always seems to finish right around 1.010. Re-pitch is sometimes a little higher though.
Is it common for breweries to stop fermentation at a certain gravity? I’ve read that cold crashing can do this but not sure how I’d catch it at the right time when it hits 1.015. I’ve heard that large scale brewing will re-pitch many times so maybe that’s why it’s listed higher?
Second thing is the hops. They list Ahtanum and Millenium but both seem sold out everywhere I’ve looked so far, or only available commerically. I’ve found Nugget and Amarillo as likely substitutions. Would anyone be familar enough with these hops to confirm that?
imho definitely dont force the yeast to stop working through an artificial temperature drop, it can result in the beer overcarbonating hugely later if it ever warms up or sits long.
definitely mash temp + practice. i just aim for ~150f in general and based on my repeated results i know that if i want a lower attenuation i could add a non-fermentable ie. crystal, if i want it drier i can go lower or add cane sugar.
i definitely think IPAs need, need a malt backbone but dont worry too much especially if its all-malt, just let it take its course and you should be fine if youre hitting 75-79% attenuation.
Double IPAs finish at a higher gravity than IPAs because they have a higher original gravity. I myself like to add a little sugar to DIPAs so they don’t finish too sweet. I wouldn’t worry too much about your terminal gravity being too low, especially if you don’t add any sugar.
As far as your hop question, I found Ahtanum to be somewhat underwhelming when it first came out. Amarillo would be a decent substitute, personally I would use a mix of Centennial and Amarillo for flavor and aroma additions. As far as Millennium, that’s a bittering hop. I would probably use Warrior as a substitute. Magnum would be another good choice. Your suggestion of Nugget would work, but you probably would have to double the quantities.
The higher the OG, the higher the FG. Plain and simple. If you can get a DIPA to finish at 1.010, hats off to you. I doubt it will happen unless you substitute a ton of sugar for some of the malt.
Don’t try to stop fermentation early. There is a technique out there to do so that is popular with some cider people, but… in a beer, no, don’t.
Amarillo would have been my first choice to replace Ahtanum, yep, that’s good. And Nugget for Millennium, yep that’s good too. Perfect.
This is super helpful. Thanks,
I thought yeast strains were developed to always hit the same FG (not repitch), do they instead work within a range of points or something?
On doubling the quantitues, my nugget hops have a 14.8% AA and the Millenium data I found lists 14.5 - 16.5 so isn’t that pretty close enough?
Great that you are learning, Joe! I will succinctly try to answer your questions, others will probably give better clarification.
Yeast strains were isolated from existing breweries, and they are reported on expected attenuation rates based on reported experience, which may or may not be true depending on the grist. No, they were not developed to end at a specific gravity.
My standard DIPA sugar addition is 1 lb. table sugar for 5 gallons DIPA batch.
Thanks, “attenuation” was the word I was trying to remember. Yeah, always more to learn, that’s for sure. Glad y’all are so willing to offer your time, experience and insight into this process. I’d likely have gotten frustrated with it, otherwise, and given up years ago.
I’ll take note on that sugar:wort ratio. It’s been mentioned a couple times on this thread, but interestingly enough it’s not in the recipe. Could have been left out as part of the “secret sauce” clause I suppose. It sounds like it’s a pretty standard practice for high grav beer. Especially with what Denny mentioned about it turning into barley wine.
…And I like BW, it’s just not what I’m shootin’ fer’
A yeast strain may list an attenuation %, but that’s not FG. And even attenuation % can vary depending on the wort. That’s why you want to use sugar in a DIPA.
Do you scale back the grist accordingly then so your ABV isn’t off the hook? I’m kind of adding the sucrose to Brewfater after I’ve already scaled the recipe down.
Yes, you can scale the malt bill back a bit but try to make the IBU’s to OG numbers match somewhat closely so that you keep the beer relatively balanced. I use Beer Smith and there is a graph of gravity numbers to IBU number and I keep the arrows on the graph close and also shoot for the middle of the style guidelines range of both. But, it’s your beer, make it they way that works for you.
I assume you are adding the sugar to the kettle, just to verify. I also use dextrose (corn sugar) instead of sucrose in the kettle. The only time I use sucrose is when I make a Tripel, but you can do what works for you and what you have on hand.
