ABV Higher than expected, too much yeast?

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Wizz69
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ABV Higher than expected, too much yeast?

Post by Wizz69 » Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:44 am

I am a newish homebrew er and have recently finished a British Brown Ale. The recipe was a cline and was scaled down from a 23l recipe to accomadate an approx fermentation volume of around 12l.

Based on the 23l recipe the OG would be 1.047, and the FG would be 1.014 giving an ABV 4.2%. I was using wyeast 1099.

I actually collected 11.5l with an OG of 1.048, so I think I did well there. I pitched the full yeast packet. And then put the fermenter away for about a week.

The activity stopped and I had a consistent FG of 1.010 over several days before I racked. This gave me an ABV of 4.9%. A bit of an overshoot.

I want to understand where I went wrong? Should I have used less yeast? Because is scaled the grain bill and hop additions down but not the yeast., just pitched a full packet.

It seems that I had everything almost on target uptil pitching.

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Re: ABV Higher than expected, too much yeast?

Post by Silver_Is_Money » Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:50 am

Different yeasts ferment sugars (attenuate) to different percentages or degree. Did you use the recommended yeast? I doubt that your pitching a full pack is the cause here. But there is always a degree of variability as to what you will get vs. what a recipe claims, and I don't see that your outcome is outside of the expected range of such variability.

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Hanglow
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Re: ABV Higher than expected, too much yeast?

Post by Hanglow » Wed Aug 05, 2020 10:51 am

Attenuation is affected mainly by the type of yeast, ingredients and mash time/temperature/type.

Seeing as you have 79% attenuation, I suspect your wort was just a bit more fermentable than normal. What was the recipe?

If everything else went well, the beer should still taste fine

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Wizz69
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Re: ABV Higher than expected, too much yeast?

Post by Wizz69 » Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:41 am

Thanks, the beer is actually fabulous and tastes just how I wanted it to., so I guess no issues to report.

A drinkable beer is always the goal. I thought the attenuation was actually on the good side as well with no changes to my routine.

First time using wyeast though, with the snap pack. I usually have always used dried yeast.

I suppose being a new I am still trying to understand the reasons of it all.

Thanks again.

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Re: ABV Higher than expected, too much yeast?

Post by Meatymc » Thu Aug 06, 2020 9:53 am

Wizz69 wrote:
Wed Aug 05, 2020 11:41 am
Thanks, the beer is actually fabulous and tastes just how I wanted it to. I suppose being a new I am still trying to understand the reasons of it all.
I've just done 4 back-to-back dry hopped IPA's with the only variable being the dry hop. Everything else exactly the same - process, timescale, grain/yeast/boil/flame out hop bill, treatment, temp's etc. One finished at 1010, two at 1009 and the last at 1008.

Lifes too short to get overly anal about things - if you're happy with the result, that's all that really counts in my view :D

PS An IPA I did 6 months ago was absolutely rank so I'm no expert :wink: but what it did make me do is take more notice of what I was doing to find the schedule on that brew was actually all over the place.

Make sure you keep good notes is my advice - it'll defo help you to avoid repeating past mistakes.

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Wizz69
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Re: ABV Higher than expected, too much yeast?

Post by Wizz69 » Thu Aug 06, 2020 10:01 am

Cheers pal. One thing I do do, is keep detailed notes. Mainly because I have done different brews All the time and just started going over older brews I liked the most.

I am using a book and paper, but will look around for a decent around brew day app. The market is full of them.....

Am trying Brewfather app at the moment.

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