I’ve used this yeast for the first time last week in a pale ale, and have a couple of questions:
Fermenting at 18c/64f, how long should I expect this to take ferment out 19L of 1.055 wort?
Having never actually tasted the results of the yeast, but having read the descriptions of it, it sounds like a good yeast for a mild. My alternate yeast for the beer would be WLP005, what would people recommend?
I took a sample earlier, that came out as 1.022, so it’s attenuated 59% so far (planned FG 1.014/74% attenuation). I’m tempted to knock it up a degree or two (celcius). My plan is to try and free the fermentation fridge up next weekend to get the mild on, so that I can have the mild ready for a beer festival on 2 July.
I like to give it maybe 4 days @ 62-64F (normal strength beer) then ramp up to 68 or 70F over a couple days to finish. It’s probably @ FG in a week but I leave it in primary an extra week to clean up. Great strain!
Do you think I’m safe to add my dry hops, or should I wait a couple of days?
Personally, I’d either wait until the airlock activity is near done or wait a week or two until the beer has dropped fairly clear and add the dry hops. Or dry hop in the keg, if you keg. It’ll be good either way.
Like any other yeast, it’s done when it’s done. I follow pretty much the same schedule Jon does and after 3-5 days at 63 I crank it up to 70. I never dry hop before fermentation is completed and I prefer to get the beer off the yeast before dry hopping.
I’ve had good success starting that strain around 64F and ramping it up two degrees a day after it hit high krausen. I leave most beers at ambient for a week after visible fermentation is complete, then I cold crash before kegging or racking/lagering.
Thanks for the answers, sounds like I’m not going to be able to get this bottled next week as planned. If I took the FV out of the fridge, is this a yeast that would be fine sitting at room temp (21/22c) for the last 7 days?
If you’re past the first 4 or 5 days of fermentation, sure.
Cheers, I think I’ll leave it in the fridge this week at 20c, then move it out and dry hop it. That’ll give me time to get the mild brewed, bottled, and carbed in time for the beer fest.
I upped the temp first to 20c, and then to 21c, and took another gravity reading last night. Gravity has moved slightly (1.020), but is still some distance off my expecteded FG (1.014). The sample was still incredibly cloudy with what I assume is suspended yeast. Wort was mashed at 66c, although I did forget my acid additions (so Bru’n Water estimates the mash pH at 5.6).
Am I likely to see any further movement in gravity (last 2 measurement have been 1.020) or should I proceed with cold crashing, and dry hopping? I don’t mind leaving it to ferment out if it’s likely to reach it’s expected gravity.
What was the recipe? Have you made it before?
Grist was:
Belgian Pale ale with a bit of MO 75%
Munich 22%
Carapils 2%
Carafa 3 1%
SG 1.055
I’ve not made this recipe before. I added a little CaCL and gypsum, and was meant to add some lactic to get the pH down to 5.3. I forgot the acid, so I think the mash pH was 5.6.
It was a 19L batch, where I pitched a 1L starter prepared using the SNS method. Yeast was from a new packet (April 2016), starter looked healthy, and fermentation took off quickly.
Some Munich malts can be less fermentable. While I agree that your gravity is kinda high, I also wonder how you got your expectation of what FG would be.
Can you expound on this a bit (i.e. are there specific maltsters or Lovibond ranges where you find this to be true)? I’ve had intermittent challenges with both fermentability and acidity using Avangard Munich (10L/20 EBC). In recipes that call for a lot of Munich malt I started cutting it with Vienna to compensate, but would like to better understand what I was experiencing.
I also considered just buying a sack of a lower Lovibond Munich to blend with it, as I like the “dark Munich” flavors but most of the recipes I’m brewing (or have adapted from) probably didn’t have the “dark Munich” in mind (it just happens to be what my LHBS stocks).
It was based on sticking 74% attenuation into my recipe calculator. I don’t mind it stopping at 1.020, the sample I took last night tastes good, but having had bottle bombs in the past, I’m a bit nervous when it appears to stall on a beer that wasn’t designed to have a highish FG.
I haven’t had any trouble with domestic Munich, but it seems like most continental Munich can have lower diastatic power. Some on other forums have reported conversion problems with continental Munich. I use Best for continental Munich and have found that it can take a little longer to convert. But given a 90 min. mash, I usually have no problems. Also, another thing I was getting at is that unless you’ve brewed this recipe before, your FG would be more of a guess than an expectation.
Sounds like it’s probably done then. I’ll get the dry hops chucked in, and then cold crash it next weekend. Cheers.
I added my dry hops earlier today, and took a hydrometer reading, and noticed something strange. When I initially placed the hydrometer in the sample jar, it read below 1.020 (about 1.012), but after I’d spun it a couple of times it showed around the 1.020 mark. So I decided to take a reading using a refractometer, which showed a reading of 6.2 Brix. Given my SG of 1.055, I calculate that gives me a current gravity of 1.011. This is the first time I’ve noticed a discrepancy between my refractometer and hydrometer (they usually correlate very closely). I checked both devices with water, and both show 1.000 as expected. Given that the beer is very cloudy with suspended yeast, could this be interfering with the behaviour of the hydrometer? Possibly sticking to the hydrometer and providing buoyancy?
Very doubtful.