1014 fg - too high?

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Showing my inexperience here but my galaxy seems to have stopped at 1014 which seems very high. Been there for a few days now. It started at 1048 so that's still about 4.6abv but that's not my concern.

Would people consider that too high to finsh at and what are the implications for taste and primng bottles (as there's still a lot of unfermented sugars presumably)?

Thoughts welcomed!
 
I had a Muntons Gold Conkerwood that firstly stuck at 1020, but after warming, stirring etc. eventually got down to 1014/1015 or thereabouts. Bottled it and it was a nice pint.
Give it a week to make sure then bottle it. Should be fine.
 
What's the brew? The fermentables and yeast used will impact the FG. I done a chocolate and vanilla stout with dark LME and it finished at 1.016, tried all sorts to shift it but with no luck so I read up a little and it turns out LME has more unfermentables as did the cocoa powder I used although I'm still not 100% certain it shouldn't have gone a little lower but there was no sweetness when I tasted it.
 
It's 2.5k of Light DME. I think my lp clone finished somewhere similar from a similar amount of DME. Maybe that's about right then, though I was expecting more like 1010 (though for no particular reason!)
 
Yeast can have an effect too.

In a nutshell: DME is circa 90% fermentable

So you can, with good conditions, expect to get 41 points down from 1.046 (90% of 46 is 41) however Safale 04 (for example) tends to attenuate to 75% so 75% of 41 is 31(ish) take that from your 46 and you are at 1.015.

I can assume from the numbers above that you may have something a little more attenuative than SO4? Either way it is just a case of plugging a few numbers in - slightly more complicated if you use less fermentable malts (crystals, roasted etc) as you have to apply the fermentability of each one to it's percentage make up of the grist.
 
I regularly brew these BrewUK kits, they come with decent yeast and DME. Mostly, they do get down to 1010 but you do get the occasional one finishing higher, my last one finished at 1012 - I reckon it's the time of year and lower house temp, when the yeast runs out of steam and it's colder it can't quite finish the full ferment.

You didn't say how long it's been going for? I rarely move mine before day 18-21, the fermentation really slows down at the end but can keep going ever so slowly.
 
Garethhuwwilliams said:
Showing my inexperience here but my galaxy seems to have stopped at 1014 which seems very high. Been there for a few days now. It started at 1048 so that's still about 4.6abv but that's not my concern.

Would people consider that too high to finsh at and what are the implications for taste and primng bottles (as there's still a lot of unfermented sugars presumably)?

Thoughts welcomed!
Click to expand...

my start and end G's

1048 > 1010 pimped kit (38 drop)
1070 > 1014 brewferm abdij (56 drop)
1066 > 1004 galaxy hop 2 = own recipe (62 drop)
1055 > 1015 muntons oaked ale (40 drop)

no exploding bottles, although carbonation has been lightish once tried. it does depend on % age of unfermentables you have.

my hydrometer warns about bottling above 1015, just use a pet bottle as a pressure test that will give you an early warning. Worst case then would be having to recap bottles after letting co-2 out?
 
Last edited:
Yeast was sa-05. Temps were pretty constant though at the low end (18c). It's been on for 12 days now so approaching end. If it's not shifted by Sunday night I'll bottle and prime lightly I think.

Cheers for input, helpful as always!
 
Garethhuwwilliams said:
Temps were pretty constant though at the low end (18c). It's been on for 12 days now so approaching end. If it's not shifted by Sunday night I'll bottle and prime lightly I think.
Click to expand...

I reckon it's still going, just very slowly. 18C is the very low end, any lower here and my brews tend to stop. Up to you, but I'd leave it another week - it'll be clearer by then anyway, so less sediment in the bottles.
 
darrellm said:
I reckon it's still going, just very slowly. 18C is the very low end, any lower here and my brews tend to stop. Up to you, but I'd leave it another week - it'll be clearer by then anyway, so less sediment in the bottles.
Click to expand...

I give all my brews (4 so far :roll:) 14 days min in the fv. that has always sorted it out for me. min temp 18 - max 23
 
I've only done a few brews but one of them I primed and bottled at 1016 as it hadn't moved for a couple of days and when I drank it I decided to do another reading and it had gone down to about 1006 I think it was. I was a little surprised.
 
So Sa-05 seems to have average attenuation of 75%. Plugging that into the forum calculator with an sg of 1048 gives an fg of 1012 so I'm not far off.

What's cool about that is that I've just learned about yeast attenuation!

Thanks to brewtus for the lesson. Every day's a school day, eh?
 
I've had attenuation over 80% with US05. But I've also had 76%, on my latest batch. Depends on the fermentables mainly.

Why not put it somewhere warmer? Anything up top about 25C will be fine at this late stage.
 
So with 90% fermentables, from 1048 is 43.2 points, The max it could drop if everything was fermented.

I got to 1014 which is a drop of 34

34 is 78% of 43.2, so my attenuation was 78% if I've done my maths right, which is closer to clibits expectation.

Is that right?
 
Garethhuwwilliams said:
So with 90% fermentables, from 1048 is 43.2 points, The max it could drop if everything was fermented.

I got to 1014 which is a drop of 34

34 is 78% of 43.2, so my attenuation was 78% if I've done my maths right, which is closer to clibits expectation.

Is that right?
Click to expand...

S04 has an attenuation around 75% - While S05 is more like 81%. If you've used S05 then you're in the right ball park.

The reason kits often get down further is the use of granulated sugar or the like which can be close to 100% fermentable!
 

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