RIS FG help

[dedken]

Hi all,

I've brewed a RIS which I plan to keep for 18 years as a maturity ale for my recently born son. Anyway enough background.

I shot for 100 (but was only expecting to get 90 at the best). After fiddling about I ended up with an OG of 84, which I decided to live with. After fermenting with a 5l starter from 3 vials of WLP002, I added a vial of WLP007 at SG 32 as recommended but it has failed to dry the beer out enough. I've ended up with an FG of 29. Now, the beer tastes to me like it is going to be pretty good but it might be a touch full bodied - it's not cloying but I worry it might become so once the hoppiness has faded. Also it doesn't have enough alcohol (7.33% by my calculation).

I've tried since to add some champagne yeast, but that did nothing noticeable. I could try to pitch more champagne yeast from fresher packets but I don't know how it's going to react to being thrown into a highly alcoholic beer. Then there's the dry beer enzyme option, but I'm worried it will dry the beer right out to undrinkable proportions. I've also considered mixing up a batch of LME and adding just to boost the alcohol. Or maybe I should just leave it as it is, but that doesn't make it Imperial! Or maybe I should add some vodka...... So what should I do?

I have 42l to play around with, insofar as one keg is going to be left well alone until I've finished experimenting with the other one and got it right!

Answers on a postcard to 7, London.

[Rookie]

That seems a bit low in alc to last 18 years and still be good, perhaps a rebrew is in order.
I've done a similar thing for each of my grandkids, but with mead. The batch for the 11 year old recently hit the 10 year mark and I opened one to taste: fantastic. That one was over 18%. At the end of the year the next grandkid turns 11 and I'll be tasting one of those. Then three more years till the next tasting on the third one's batch. The youngest one just turned six and her mead is fermenting as we speak. This one started at 1.136 and is down to 1.028 and still burping away.

[jonnyt]

Something's not right. For example I got down to 1.018 from 1.090 with one sachet of US05

[hommebru]

add dextrose to dry it out further and bump up the abv. if the yeast is still alive, which it should be, it should be able to eat right through these sugars even if it can't get through anything left in the beer atm.

[dedken]

Looking back at my notes it seems I did mash a little high - 68.5 dropping to 67.5. I was aiming at 67.5, but I seem to be having difficulties hitting strike temperature these days. Ever since I started underletting in fact, trouble is underletting makes it a whole lot easier to dough-in especially when you've got 20kg of grain in your tun!

....Then looking at my design in Beersmith2 a 68.5C mash gives and estimated FG of 34 with my recipe so that suggests it has actually fermented out further than it should. Reducing the mash temperature to 66 predicts an FG of 29 which is where I'm at. So perhaps I haven't done too much wrong other than fail with my brewhouse efficiency - there are obviously just a lot of less fermentable adjuncts in the mash.

In addition this grist is more or less the same as a beer which got 1st at last years National (give or take 200g of crystal or so), so it should work really.

I will try to do four things with this beer a) apply dry beer enzyme to a 1litre portion b) apply champagne yeast to another 1l portion c) add some LME to another 1l portion d) use hop extract to adjust bittering of them all.

I will not be beaten!!

[barney]

What was your recipe? how much adjuncts were in there and how long was the mash. Did you test for conversion?

[dedken]

I've never tested any mash for conversion, but it was 100mins before mashout, recirculation and batch sparge. That ought to have done the trick.

MOP 82.5%
Roasted malts (barley/rye) 6.5%
Chocolate malts 5%
Special B 2.5%
Other crystal varieties 3.6%

[barney]

Sounds Super, it cant be that then.

Congratulations on the little un.

[Rookie]

I've never tested any mash for conversion, but it was 100mins before mashout, recirculation and batch sparge. That ought to have done the trick.

Most of the conversion happens in the first 15-20 minutes of the mash. At 100 minutes it was definately done.

[dedken]

I've never tested any mash for conversion, but it was 100mins before mashout, recirculation and batch sparge. That ought to have done the trick.

Most of the conversion happens in the first 15-20 minutes of the mash. At 100 minutes it was definately done.

Yes I know. What I should have done was boil for two hours to get a higher OG, but that's something for next time.

I've pulled off a 1l portion and added dry beer enzyme - one week later it's down to 1.012 and I'm wondering how much lower it will go? Really don't want it any lower!

[WishboneBrewery]

Even this went down to FG 1019 http://pdtnc.wordpress.com/2013/01/01/a ... ata-nictu/ with a 65c mash for 120mins.

My Barleywine finished at 1015 http://pdtnc.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/a ... eers-gold/ Mashed at 65c for 3 hours.