Stuff that's bothering me about my fifth brew so far

[Buzzing]

Hi Guys,

As always, there'll be something bothering me about my brews until I've seen and done it all in brewing, which won't be anytime soon.

I brewed a German Altbier with a pale Pilsner malt as a base and then supplemented this with some crystal malt for a nice caramel-type flavour and then a small amount of dark malt for some good colour and some smoky / coffee / chocolate undertones.

This is the first time I worked with the hops pellets and think I made a huge mistake. Previously I worked with the hops cones, and the hops cone leaflets, which was easy to work with and easy to seperate from the brew.

With the Hallertau added to the brew, it broke up very very finely and spread throughout the brew. I boiled until hot-break, sieved out as much as I could, and chilled it rapidly to get the cold-break where alot of solids also settled out at the bottom. I used the top wort, that looked clean enough, and topped up my FV and pitched the yeast starter when the correct temperature was reached.

I am using a proper Alt-yeast that's been developed to work at lower temperatures, and am keeping the temps on the low side in order to get a crisp and clean product.

Problem is : some fine fine hops, that managed to get past my make-shift triple filtering system, initially settled to form a deposit at the bottom. As soon as the yeast started working, some of the hops particles began circulating and going-with-the-flow in the FV there.

Is this a bad thing ? Will I end up with some bad aftertastes in the end-product ? I'm not too concerned about the hops particles fermenting, but rather it's effect on taste and also the difficulties that one might have in getting it to clear eventually.

If one leaves this brew to ferment out, drop the temperature to facilitate clearing and leave it for a week or so, and then carefully siphon off only the clear product at the top for bottling and priming, can I still expect a decent product ?


Comments, suggestions and advice welcome.

 

[robsan77]

Those hop particles should settle out when the yeast clears. No worries.

 

[Buzzing]

Indeed they did, and the Altbier ended up a very good beer.

One thing that was odd was that it did not, even after 4 weeks, come down lower than 1.016.

Could this be the addition of the Crystal Malt ? The Crystal Malt definately gives flavour and colour to the brew, but not really sugars as far as I know. What wuold have cased the FG to be so high ?

Not complaining, as it gives an awesome thick mouthfeel that's followed by a malt flavour explosion with a hint of caramel and a good hopsy character.