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Got a too-sweet beer on my hands... suggestions?
Hey everyone, some-time lurker, first time poster. Like many delurkers, I finally registered because I need some advice... and everyone here is so smart! So without further ado:
I brewed a monster of a trippel earlier this month - it was largely based upon the "Tripel Around The World" recipe in Sam Calagione's "Extreme Brewing." I made it a little bigger, though: the OG after the boil was 1.108. Fermentation was blow-off-tube-vigorous, thanks to the massive starter of Wyeast 3787 (Trappist High Gravity) I made.
The recipe calls for the addition of 1 lb. of brown sugar two days into the fermentation, which I followed. There's no way to be absolutely sure what this did to the overall gravity of the beer, but to the best of my calculations, it added approx .009. Fermentation continued, and I left it alone for some time. After a little over a week, it looked as if things had settled down, so I checked the gravity: 1.037. Not bad from such a high start, but still "too high" to be palatable. And there it stopped.
I read Wyeast's website about 3787, which indicated that this strain likes to continue to be fed sugar additions. So I added yet another pound of brown sugar (again, by my estimates, adding .009 to the gravity), and out of prudence, pitched an additional smackpack of 3787 I had lying around. Things got going again (though not as much as before), and I managed to get the beer down to 1.030. There it stayed.
If I'm right that the brown sugar additions added approx. .009 to the gravity of the beer, then the alcohol level is getting up there: 1.108 + .009 + .009 = 1.126. (1.126-1.030)*131 = 12.6% ABV.
I've sampled the beer: it smells and tastes like a tripel; in fact, it tastes quite like New Belgium's Trippel... aside from the fact that it is WAY too sweet. Cloyingly so - it has a wonderful exotic complexity, but definitely too sweet for more than a sip or two. Unfortunately, being brewed as a tripel, the hop bittering presence is relatively low, so the beer is unbalanced.
(as a side note, I should say the wort made was highly fermentable, so much of the residual sugars ought to be able to be fermented... by a yeast with a high enough alcohol tolerance).
So I thought I would add some champagne yeast to try and bring things down a bit more and dry it out a little; beer yeast would probably just pass out in this high alcohol environment. So I pitched a packet of rehydrated Lalvin-1118 in 24 hours ago...
... and nothing. 24 hours later, there has been no appreciable sign of fermentation and the gravity is unchanged.
So. Decision time! I see a few options, but only a couple I'd really want to try:
(1) condition and bottle it where it is. Ugh, I don't think so. I'd never drink it... too sweet by far.
(2) boil some hops in a small amount of water (or weak extract wort) for an hour and blend it with the trippel to try and up the bitterness to balance the beer out. This seems like the best option, BUT I'm afraid I'd take the beer too far in another direction -- I don't want some kind of american barleywine thing; I'd like to keep it reminiscent of a tripel if possible (fruity and floral).
(3) Try champagne yeast again, but pitch substantially more, on the theory that the yeast in one packet simply rehydrated was overwhelmed/shocked by the environment in the beer. Use multiple packets, and/or make a starter of champagne yeast. I know conventional wisdom is that one shouldn't make starters for dry yeast, but since the starter would be pitched into such a high alcohol environment (currently at least 10.2%, perhaps as high as 12.7%), I'd think any bacteria/wild yeasts in the packet would have a hard time taking over.
So FINALLY... I turn to you guys: would you choose one of the above options, and if so, which (and how would you go about it)? Is there another avenue to consider to help reduce the sweetness?
Cheers, and thanks in advance!
- EJ
(I'm choosing to not even THINK about carbonation at this point... this beer may be the one that tips the scales toward kegging for me, but I'll worry about that later...)
What temp are you fermenting at? how many days total in the primary? I used WLP400 the Belgian Wit yeast, and it took about 3 weeks to ferment down from 1.060. The first week, it dropped to 1.023, and stayed there, so I swirled it, brought it up to 75degrees from 65degrees, and would swirl it every day. Finally after 23 days it finished at 1.009. It took a while, but it came out great. Maybe this yeast needs a warmer ferment also?
Hi bruguru -
I definitely started the beer out a little on the low end of the temperature range for a Belgian... not intentionally, just the weather circumstances. Before I added the second addition of brown sugar and the extra Wyeaast, it was fermenting in the 67-68F range. Still, it worked pretty vigorously for a while; even using a blow-off tube, the beer wanted to erupt out of the fermenter in the early days. Anyway, after the first week, I moved it to a different room which helped it get a little closer to 70 or so, which is where it has been ever since. It's been about 3 weeks total now...
I haven't done much swirling (aside from the inevitable swirling from moving the fermentor from room to room at the one point). I'll try that for a few days and see if anything starts to happen...! Good idea.
The Champagne yeast is supposed to work across a broad range of temperatures (supposedly between 50-86 F!!!), so even if the 3787 can't handle things anymore, it ought to be able to run in these temps...
Cheers.
I've got a tripel doing the same thing to me right now. Mine has been on a cake of wy1388 for 6 weeks now, and has gotten 3 packets of 1118 champagne. It will not budge below 1.044, and i had a low mash temp and 5# of sugar. Mine is going to turn into a brett experiment, I am toying with which strain to go for, but I thinks the brux will win out, and 6 months from now I should have a nice sour tripel.
If I were you I would trybumping the heat up even more than 70, try 78-80, the esters will be a little higher but most of the ferment is done so fusels should not be an issue. lastly 3787 is a lagger and has tendencies to stall, I have done a BSGA with it and needed 6 weeks to finish out.
Engine Joe wrote:
Anyway, after the first week, I moved it to a different room which helped it get a little closer to 70 or so, which is where it has been ever since. It's been about 3 weeks total now...
I haven't done much swirling (aside from the inevitable swirling from moving the fermentor from room to room at the one point). I'll try that for a few days and see if anything starts to happen...! Good idea.
1. Congrats on your first post with such a common yet complicate subject sometimes.
2. 3 week so far, I'd let it go for another3-5weeks before I got concerned. Raise the temp to better than 70 if you can. Try a blanket and heating pad. Swirl that yeast up about twice a week and see what you get.
3. I wouldn't bother with champagne yeast. I read or heard something recently that champagne yeast really won't help out beer much. Mainly because it has been breed to ferment simple sugars. At this point most of your simple sugars are gone. The brewers yeast can still handle some of the other sugars, its just going to take some time. If that is true (which I find it reasonable) then the champagne yeast trick is largely myth.
I have one question for you... was this an all grain brew or extract? If its an extract brew then you might be done.
Hi brewchez & thirsty -
I'll see what I can do to kick the temp up a few more notches. This was the first brew I made after moving to a new house and I didn't really have a good sense yet of how warm various parts of the house would be in the winter... I was hoping I'd be able to just set the fermenter close to a vent, but looks like it's time for the heavy artillery!
This was an all-grain batch; which was part of the modification I made from the original recipe in the book (for a book called "Extreme Brewing" it's funny to note that all of the recipes are extract-and-steep plus one or two mini-mashers). I did a low temp mash for high fermentability... so there ought to still be some fermentable sugar in there somewhere.
Of course, if for some reason the beer is actually done, I still have a too-sweet-to-drink beer to contend with. But I'll give it another couple of weeks to try and let it drive itself down before revisiting that question.
Thirsty - that sounds like it will be great! I did something similar with a dubbel I made some time back; after the primary yeast was pretty much worn out, I ended up using White Labs Sour Mix I to kick in some lacto as well as the brett. I also tossed in some oak chips. The beer is still maturing, but it already tastes great.
If it stil lis too sweet after trying tose things you might want ot consider taking some of the finished uncarbonated beer, boiling it with some hops for 45 minuted and adding it back to the beer and let it sit for a couple weeks. You should get some bitterness to offset the sweetness that way.
DC
deafcone wrote:
If it stil lis too sweet after trying tose things you might want ot consider taking some of the finished uncarbonated beer, boiling it with some hops for 45 minuted and adding it back to the beer and let it sit for a couple weeks. You should get some bitterness to offset the sweetness that way.
DC, any guidelines on this? I don't think my usual hop utilization calculators would be accurate... I'm thinking of maybe taking a quart of the beer out to boil with some hops, but I'd guess this isn't the same as working with a quart of unfermented wort in terms of getting the bitterness out of the hops... also, I wonder about the net bittering effect when this new mini-batch is diluted back into the rest of the beer.
Anyone ever done this before?
On a side note, I've had the brew belt on the fermenter for the last 24 hours or so, bringing the temp up to approx 74-75F. I've rocked the fermenter twice to try and rouse the yeast as well. I'm going to let it go for a while and see what happens (nothing yet, though). I am getting a little leery of leaving the beer on the current yeast much longer - brew day was 3+ weeks ago now, and at some point I might start getting autolysis...
It shouyld be the same as using just water or similar as you mentioned the gravity reading is about 1.030 or somewhere in there. Not sure how much fermentables are left if any but I suggested using some of the fermented beer so as not to dilute the batch. Someone on the forum did boil hops and add it to the fermented beer to try to improve bitterness and they said it worked. I don't remember who it was but it should be in the archives. Maybe someone else remembers the post.
DC
I'm with Thirsty on this one. Adding some brett or other sour bugs might be able to bring it down lower. Can't say for sure, since those bugs are susceptible to alcohol and pH.
I added some brett brux, sour mix, and dregs from a couple of bottles of Orval to an 1100 gravity IIPA a friend brewed that wouldn't get below a 1030 gravity (he did a partial boil extract IIPA) and was really cloying and no carbonation. It definitely dropped the gravity and had enough left to carbonate. It's been aging in the bottles though and I haven't really tasted it, but it smelled and tasted incredible going into the bottles for corking.
One other thought on dropping the gravity - get yourself some Beano. Never tried it myself, but I hear you can use it to help break down those sugars, maybe giving the yeast the opportunity to munch on them before the alcohol goes to their heads.
DT
OK, so here's what I ended up doing - based on the feedback from you guys (thanks!). I made a hop tea - the liquid was about 60% water and about 40% of the beer. The idea was that I didn't want to dillute the beer too much with water, but at the same time, I thought 100% beer boil might create some caramelized flavors that I don't want. By my calcs., the tea would add 10 IBUs overall to the batch (based on Tinseth's formula).
I added the tea to the beer and let it go for a while. Tasted it recently and it was still too sweet - plus I did get some (though not a lot) caramel character that wasn't there before. It was a bit more bitter, at least, but hardly even close to balanced. Plus the mouthfeel is quite thick.
So I've opted to split the batch into two - one half got hit with brett - the other half is getting another dose of hop tea. Then, after they've had time to do their things, I'm planning on blending them back together. This should limit the caramel effect of any new tea somewhat (since it will only be in half the batch) and, on the other side, will also let me control the brett level a bit more.
As I see it, even if it all ends up being lousy, there's little lost at this point by trying - it's pretty undrinkable at this stage due to its thick mouthfeel and sweetness.
2 other solutions I did not think of before. You could try some of this: http://morebeer.com/search/103026/beerw … op_Extract a little expensive, but it should go a long way and last awhile, you'll always have some on hand. Hell the big breweries use it.
The second is to try krausening. I am going to try this with a saison I have. I am brewing a belgian blond with ardennes strain on friday, I am going to wait until about day 3 or 4 of the ferment, and pull off a couple quarts of fermenting wort, then add that to the saison to see if I cn get huge attenuation and really dry it out. If you have any belgians in your futre you coud try that. Just some more $.02 to add to the party.
deafcone wrote:
If it stil lis too sweet after trying tose things you might want ot consider taking some of the finished uncarbonated beer, boiling it with some hops for 45 minuted and adding it back to the beer and let it sit for a couple weeks. You should get some bitterness to offset the sweetness that way.
DC
I guess I didn't see this post before but I don't really think that will help with the gravity numbers that are being thrown about here.
Even if you can get bitterness into the beer, the resutl will be the same sweet flavor up front followed by a more bittered finish. But the sweetness will still be there.
In the end I think this is an exercise in the reality that its often difficult to actually save a beer. Learn from it and move on. Drink it if you want/can, but I'd dump it and rebrew it as my next batch while its still fresh in my mind what changes I need to make to my process.
Krausening may work too, because its the same things as pitching a new active slug of yeast.
Lastly, like I said originally, if this was an extract brew, or if you mash temp was too high (even 154F) a 1.037 finish from a 1.108 start is very well likely the bottom and it aint going to get any lower no matter what you do. The only way to srive it lower would be to get some sort of contaminating bug in there that will chew up the non-fermentable sugars.
Hell if you are bent on trying to get it to go lower just for shits and giggles now I'd suggest Beano...but I'd never suggest beano normally.
Haven't been able to participate on the boards (in this, my own plea for help thread, or in any others for that matter) for the last couple of weeks as I've been swamped by my so-called "real responsibilities," but I thought I'd post a quick update.
At this point, I consider this batch one to just play with. If I start from the point of view that it is pretty much "ruined", then nothing can go wrong and I can just try different things. Thus the last step I mentioned here: splitting into two batches and adding brett to one and hop tea to the other.
Well, that didn't do a damn thing; even the brett was inactive after a week (I know brett is a slow worker, but it ought to have at least done something in that time). So I went with brewchez's "shits and giggles" suggestion of Beano. I'd never tried it before, and it's not something I'd really ever considered using before. Anyway, I recombined the two batches, then put four crushed Beano caplets in the fermenter. I based the amount of Beano to use on this article from BYO's Mr. Wizard.
http://byo.com/stories/wizard/article/s … -you-think
Anyway, 48 hours later, the gravity has slid down from 1.030 to 1.024 (bear in mind it has been moored at 1.030 for about a month now)! It's still not especially drinkable - it may never be after all the stuff I've done with it - but it is proving to be quite an amusing thing to play around with. Beano does seem to work! I'm assuming that the brett is doing the work at this point (fine with me), but the principle is the same.
So I'm just going to leave it alone and see where it ends up. I'll have learned a lot about this beer for the next time I try to make it...!
I've often wondered if you could put your carboy, or your fermentation bucket on a stir plate with the stirrer actually in the beer. This seems to me like it might work especially for belgians.
Has anyone tried this? I think I might on my next belgian
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