I just made a batch of pale AG. Due to being an idiot, I noticed as I was into the bottling process that I had run low
on priming sugar. I live in a place that is 1.5 hours away from a brew store. So, I decided to supplement with regular
household granulated sugar. In fact, of the half cup total, all but 3 tablespoons was granulated.
So, I’m Day 8 tasting. The hops are unnoticeable, but worse yet is that this brew is reminiscent of Dogfish 120. For
those who have not tasted it, it has a cloying sweetness to it that is not very pleasing to me personally. I have never
had a batch that tasted like this - and I’m hoping that it will calm as it ages.
Question then is: did I really screw up by this substitution?
No, table sugar and corn sugar are interchangeable and both will ferment out completely. How long ago did you bottle the beers? It may just been that it’s not done carbonating yet.
Strange part is that when I tasted the first bottle on 1/28, it had some hop taste and no sweetness.
3 days later, the hops seemed to disappear and the sweetness began.
That’s not a great attenuation either, so the beer might be on the sweet side from the start. Plus it might not be long enough for the beers to fully carbonate, give them another week and try again.
If the sugar is not evenly distributed, put them in boxes or something in case you get some bottle bombs.
I have a hard time understanding how a 1.044 OG beer can taste anything like DFH 120 min… even with that type of low attenuation. Can you post a recipe? What yeast did you use? What was your fermentation temp?
I’m sorry, I misworded my original post. What I MEANT to say is that this brew was reminiscent of DFH120 in that there is (to me) overwhelming sweetness that I do not associate with normal pales. I don’t mean to imply that I accidentally brewed a DFH120. I’m sorry for the error. Given that here is the recipe:
Mashed with 3.5 gallons at 155 deg F for 1 hour.
Sparged with 2.5 gallons at 160 deg F
I have a feeling that the “answer” is what was previously mentioned - I had a poor distribution of sugar. Having previously been strongly warned that aeration should be kept to a minimum during transfer to bottling bucket, I dumped the sugar (after boiling it for 5 minutes) into the bottom and just ran the siphon on top of it. I’m thinking that I should have not been so worried about aeration and should have done a good stir job before starting to boil. And thanks for the warning of detonation - in FACT, I lost 6 22oz bottles due to explosions on my last batch. I then put it down to the unwise bottling into the thinner 22 ounce bottles, but I’m thinking now that it was a bad sugar distribution even then.
Yup, a week does not sound like much. What happened is that after 2 days in the primary, activity when to absolute zero. I have never had this happen and put it down to a bad sparge process (addressed in another thread I posted entitled “do i need a rest?”) that resulted in too little sugars in the wort. No, I did not take hydrometer readings to verify the yeast death - I know now that I should have. However, to test it out, I put a solid cork on the carboy for 6 hours, and then removed it - and it had not even a hint of sound as I took it off. I took that to mean that the yeast was exhausted.
What temp did you ferment? I calculate 64% attenuation which is really low for WLP001 even considering A mash temp of 155F. It’s likely your fermentation was incomplete. That coupled with lack of bottle fermentation would give you a relatively sweet beer at this point.
“And thanks for the warning of detonation - in FACT, I lost 6 22oz bottles due to explosions on my last batch. I then put it down to the unwise bottling into the thinner 22 ounce bottles, but I’m thinking now that it was a bad sugar distribution even then.”
Or bottling a bit too soon. You seem to have quite a lot of unfermented sugar at a FG of 1.016 for a low gravity beer. Next time wait a bit longer or add more yeast or aerate the cooled wort better so that the yeast gets a chance to finish its work before bottling.
Fermented at a pretty steady 68 deg F. Might have been a couple spikes here and there, but not many. Agree that fermentation was incomplete and yeah, I bottled too early. Hoping it will settle down as time goes on.
I primed with just under a half cup of sugar. Boiled in a pint of water on stove and added to bottling bucket before siphoning.
And, yes, Jeffy, that is EXACTLY what I’ll do. When activity stopped prematurely I had a notion to add more yeast and give it another chance, but being in the backwoods it would have meant another long trip to get yeast. UNLESS I wanted to risk using a bit of regular household cooking yeast and see if I could stir things up a bit, if you will.
What’s your thermometer? Is it a dial thermometer? When’s the last time it was calibrated?
and did you make a starter? and if so how large?
I have the old standard dial, analog type thermometer. Not attempted to calibrate for couple of years. I’m not sure of the process for calibration but what I just did was put it in an ice bath, note lowest temp I could get it to and did the same in boiling water.
In the ice I could not get below 35deg and it got to 213deg in boiling. I would guess that means that, on average, my thermometer is showing about 2 deg higher than true.
No, I did not make a starter. Frankly, I’m not sure the process of doing that (ie, what medium to use, how long to wait before adding to wort, etc). And I don’t know if it is necessary. I don’t want to start a new topic here, though. I’m sure there is another thread I can find about it.