high reading on fermented beer

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paulie

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I'm currently stairing into my fermenting bin which holds fifty pints of a brew which I was yet again getting excited about, only to find myself in a state of confusion.

I used two kits of youngs bitter,
1 lb of spray malt
300 g of golden syrup
1 oz of roast barley
pkt safale yeast.

Initial fermentation looked promising, and with an original gravity of 1045 I was hoping for a nice ale with decent alcohol content. Alas, it seems to have stopped fermenting at 1020 and seems to be clearing.

Is it that the whole thing is out of balance, or has my constant skimming and racking because of my fear of having a yeast bitten beer caused the problem?

any views will be greatly appreciated.
 
Firstly welcome to the forum :cheers:

From looking at your ingredients I would have expected your OG to be closer to 1.050 if you used two 1.6kg kits in a 50 pint brew :wha:
Anyway, a final gravity towards the end of fermentation of 1.020 is not that far off for a malt extract brew, it will drop a few more points as it conditions and matures though.
But, can I say in the nicest possible way, that once you have an active fermentation, leave the lid on the fermenter and let it do it's own thing :thumb:
Constant skimming will reduce the the amount of yeast available to do the job and more importantly you have more of a chance of introducing an infection :(
Yeast bite is not something that should affect anyone if they are using a brewing yeast at the correct temperature and then remove the bulk of the beer from the sediment in the primary fermentation vessel before 14 days after fermentation has finished ;)
You will get a certain "Bite" from that brew though as the two kits that you have used contain enough hops to bitter 80 pints ;) so you may be grateful for a slightly higher terminal gravity to give some body and residual sweetness to balance the bitterness :grin:
 
Seconding TS here. . . There is no reason to skim during fermentation.

'Yeast bite' is not something that I have ever experienced, and is from what I have read not something that can be cured by skimming . . .Its due to fermenting at too high a temperature with insufficient aeration, and possibly related to a poor cold break. . . . While I think that this could have been a problem during the 70's (when a lot of home brewing books were written), the quality of modern ingredients has improved beyond all recognition, and I think that this is a condition we are only ever likely to read about as authors continue to perpetuate the myths of earlier authors . . . And publishers reprinting old books without revising them :roll: to make a quick buck :twisted: .

Autolysis . . . now that is a different beast :lol:
 
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