Hi,
First home brew here. My girlfriend and I bought a Young's American IPA kit and followed the kit method in James Morton's book Brew.
Brewed on 03 May, so it has been in FV for 17 days as of today. Fermentation began within 12 hours - started aggressively overnight and got warm (say 25 - 26C). Have mostly kept it in wet towels since then, so it would have been around 20-22C for the most part. (It did get very warm when we were out this Sunday past, again up to maybe 25-26C. I realise that temperature consistency hasn't been great.)
OG was 1.064. Latest SG readings were 15 and 18 May - 1.016 and 1.014 respectively. Fermentation appears to be essentially finished - no more airlock activity and foaming has dissipated, so we added the hops yesterday (19 May).
The kit suggest a target FG of 1.007 and adding hops below 1.010, so our brew is quite a lot higher than that right now and I'm wondering how much more we can expect it to come down (if any).
The trick is that we modified a couple of ingredients based on the recommendation in the Brew book - the author seems skeptical on the use of brewing sugar and of included yeasts in kits, so we followed that advice and used spraymalt and separate yeasts. (Although in hindsight perhaps the situation with kits has changed somewhat since that book was written.)
Therefore we used 1kg light spraymalt instead of the included 1kg brewing sugar, and 2x 11.5g US-05 dried yeast sachets (23g total) instead of the included 20g Young's yeast. Also we rehydrated the yeast before pitching, which the Young's instructions don't require. So I've belatedly realised that the projected SG readings provided with the Young's kit may not apply to this brew given the modifications.
We will take another SG reading tomorrow, but I am thinking that it will not get down to the predicted 1.007 given the apparent cessation of fermentation activity i.e. foam dissipated and airlock no longer bubbling.
The plan is to bottle regardless once we have observed stable SG. My questions are:
1. is it likely that the use of light spraymalt instead of sugar and use of a different (and slightly greater amount of) yeast would potentially result in a higher FG than the kit recommendation? I see that Mangrove Jacks' provide different predicted FG for their kits depending whether you've used brewing sugar or malt extract, so I'm wondering if that's the same in this case.
2. how much more might I expect fermentation to continue and SG to drop from 1.014 given the apparent cessation of foaming and airlock activity? Will fermentation continue 'invisibly'? Obviously I will just monitor the SG over the next few days and ultimately bottle only once stable SG has been observed.
3. I note that 1.014 is the upper bound of acceptable FG for the American IPA style acording to some beer judging sources I found. If I end up with an FG of say 1.014-1.011 (guesstimated figures, but seems likely), instead of the kit recommended 1.007, what is the likely impact on taste? Sweeter? Any other considerations?
Thanks very much for any info!
First home brew here. My girlfriend and I bought a Young's American IPA kit and followed the kit method in James Morton's book Brew.
Brewed on 03 May, so it has been in FV for 17 days as of today. Fermentation began within 12 hours - started aggressively overnight and got warm (say 25 - 26C). Have mostly kept it in wet towels since then, so it would have been around 20-22C for the most part. (It did get very warm when we were out this Sunday past, again up to maybe 25-26C. I realise that temperature consistency hasn't been great.)
OG was 1.064. Latest SG readings were 15 and 18 May - 1.016 and 1.014 respectively. Fermentation appears to be essentially finished - no more airlock activity and foaming has dissipated, so we added the hops yesterday (19 May).
The kit suggest a target FG of 1.007 and adding hops below 1.010, so our brew is quite a lot higher than that right now and I'm wondering how much more we can expect it to come down (if any).
The trick is that we modified a couple of ingredients based on the recommendation in the Brew book - the author seems skeptical on the use of brewing sugar and of included yeasts in kits, so we followed that advice and used spraymalt and separate yeasts. (Although in hindsight perhaps the situation with kits has changed somewhat since that book was written.)
Therefore we used 1kg light spraymalt instead of the included 1kg brewing sugar, and 2x 11.5g US-05 dried yeast sachets (23g total) instead of the included 20g Young's yeast. Also we rehydrated the yeast before pitching, which the Young's instructions don't require. So I've belatedly realised that the projected SG readings provided with the Young's kit may not apply to this brew given the modifications.
We will take another SG reading tomorrow, but I am thinking that it will not get down to the predicted 1.007 given the apparent cessation of fermentation activity i.e. foam dissipated and airlock no longer bubbling.
The plan is to bottle regardless once we have observed stable SG. My questions are:
1. is it likely that the use of light spraymalt instead of sugar and use of a different (and slightly greater amount of) yeast would potentially result in a higher FG than the kit recommendation? I see that Mangrove Jacks' provide different predicted FG for their kits depending whether you've used brewing sugar or malt extract, so I'm wondering if that's the same in this case.
2. how much more might I expect fermentation to continue and SG to drop from 1.014 given the apparent cessation of foaming and airlock activity? Will fermentation continue 'invisibly'? Obviously I will just monitor the SG over the next few days and ultimately bottle only once stable SG has been observed.
3. I note that 1.014 is the upper bound of acceptable FG for the American IPA style acording to some beer judging sources I found. If I end up with an FG of say 1.014-1.011 (guesstimated figures, but seems likely), instead of the kit recommended 1.007, what is the likely impact on taste? Sweeter? Any other considerations?
Thanks very much for any info!
