Sweet tasting beer

Hi,
I wonder if anyone can give me some advice regarding an issue I have just encountered regarding "sweet tasting" beer.

I am using a Braumeister and have recently brewed 2 Craftybrews recipes - the 49er and the TT Landlord.
Both of these brews have resulted a "sweet tasting" brew.

The only deviation from the intended recipe that I have recorded, is the OG. The 49er had a target OG of 1049 - I recorded the OG to be 1060, however I measured this with a spectrometer which I later found to be giving spurious readings. The TT Landlord had a target OG of 1042 - I recorded 1050.

Anybody any ideas what may have gone wrong with these 2 brews?

What was your FG? How high did you mash? What yeast did you use?

Hi MickDundee,

I used all grain kits from BrewUk.
The 49er came with a liquid yeast - Wyeast 1187 Ringwood.
The TT Landlord came with a dry yeast - Nottingham.

49er - mashed at 66 degrees for 60 mins, then raised to 77 degrees for 10 mins. OG - 1060 (however this reading can't be trusted as taken with a spectrometer which I later found to be "untrustworthy"), FG - 1012.

TT Landlord - mashed the same as above. OG - 1050, FG - 1010

I picked up these "Tips" from somewhere:


Maybe you are mashing at the 68 to 72 degree level.

Maybe mashing slightly on the lower side also what temperature was your yeast working at in the wort.
Had it finished fermentation and finally was your spectrometer calibrated properly.
There is a lot of variables to why it's sweet it's just finding the culprit 👍

Sent from my ALE-L21

Thanks Dutto, that's certainly worth thinking about for my next brew.

Hi Gerryjo,
I chilled the wort to 20 degrees before adding the yeast, I maintained 20 degrees throughout fermentation.
I left the wort in the FV for a week after fermentation appeared to be complete just to be sure.
Whether I had calibrated (or used) the spectrometer correctly remains questionable! It is new and I believe I followed the instructions properly, but when I got high readings again on the second brew I used a hydrometer as a "cross check", and found significant differences between the 2.

How much sugar did you carbonate with and do you think you got the carbonation level you should have from the sugar used?

Bobmac said:

Hi Gerryjo,
I chilled the wort to 20 degrees before adding the yeast, I maintained 20 degrees throughout fermentation.
I left the wort in the FV for a week after fermentation appeared to be complete just to be sure.
Whether I had calibrated (or used) the spectrometer correctly remains questionable! It is new and I believe I followed the instructions properly, but when I got high readings again on the second brew I used a hydrometer as a "cross check", and found significant differences between the 2.

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Do a cross check on your difference's and subtract your values which should then give you your FG and probably find that it maybe slightly higher...

Sent from my ALE-L21

I'm not entirely sure what 'craftybrew' reciepes are but here's what I think possibly went wrong;
I've read that the grainfather gets really good efficiencies as its a re-circulating machine/system. As the BM is also a recirculating machine I'm guessing the BM also gets a good efficiency.
The craftybrew reciepes are based on a certain efficiency lets say 75% but if your BM is getting you an efficiency of say 85% you getting more 'washed off sugars from the grain (better efficiency)' for the same amount of grain. But your following the craftybrew reciepe and putting the same amount of hops in. With your higher efficiency you need to up the hops/IBU too to maintain the same level/ratio of bitterness. But your not, so your getting a sweet tasting beer

MyQul said:

I'm not entirely sure what 'craftybrew' reciepes are but here's what I think possibly went wrong;
I've read that the grainfather gets really good efficiencies as its a re-circulating machine/system. As the BM is also a recirculating machine I'm guessing the BM also gets a good efficiency.
The craftybrew reciepes are based on a certain efficiency lets say 75% but if your BM is getting you an efficiency of say 85% you getting more 'washed off sugars from the grain (better efficiency)' for the same amount of grain. But your following the craftybrew reciepe and putting the same amount of hops in. With your higher efficiency you need to up the hops/IBU too to maintain the same level/ratio of bitterness. But your not, so your getting a sweet tasting beer

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This. But aren't the craftybrews (brewuk?) recipes designed for Brewmeisters?

Any chance you could post the instructions? Might help highlight the issue.

This is the inherent problem with All Grain kits. Sold as making things easy, but often lack key info such as Pre-boil Gravity etc, which make problem solving difficult. And don't instruct on useful things like calculating efficiency and boil off etc.

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With any setup you want to repeat the process and record what you did with all the temps and amounts of grain and that'll mean you know how much to add to get the reading you want. The same ingredients on different systems will make a different starting gravity so it's a matter of practice and then tailoring the brew to your own setup.

Sweetness will be an issue with attenuation which would require a tweak to the mashing temperatures. Either that or your yeast might need a bit of rousing to finish properly depending on what you used. When I was doing kits with dried yeast I found they finished high no matter what I tried. Now I'm on liquid I have the opposite problem. The yeast seems to tear through and leave a lot less body.

I'd recommend getting something like Beersmith. Somebody is bound to have done a Braumeister profile for it so you can see what you ought to end up with from that, provided the shop tells you exactly how much of each grain you're getting.

serum said:

Sweetness will be an issue with attenuation which would require a tweak to the mashing temperatures. Either that or your yeast might need a bit of rousing to finish properly depending on what you used. When I was doing kits with dried yeast I found they finished high no matter what I tried. Now I'm on liquid I have the opposite problem. The yeast seems to tear through and leave a lot less body.

Click to expand...

Not necessarily. A beer brewed without hops will taste sweet even when fully fermented.


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