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Final Gravity and sweetness

Hi

Does a high FG mean that the beer will be sweeter than a batch that ferments down to 1.006 or lower?

I have read that a beer with a higher FG has more body, and a higher level of unfermentable sugars, but I much prefer my beer "dry".

I have mostly used malt extract, both kits and unhopped. I've noticed at my current house, over about five or six batches, that my FG is always about 1.018. Fermentation had finished in all cases, and the results have been anywhere from poor (shouldn't have used cane sugar in that brew) to three or so good ones, to a couple I was very happy with.

I have very a high amount of iron in my tap water (just over 3 ppm) although on the plus side, our water isn't treated in Christcurch, so no chlorine or other chemicals.

Thanks Robert

Reply to
Robert Fraser
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According to Al Korzonas in his Homebrewing Vol. 1, Malt extracts tend to have higher proportions of unfermentable sugars. I would suggest if you want drier beer, that you get into all-grain brews, and that you keep the mash temps at the lower end of the effective range. (148

- 160F). The higher end of this range will produce fuller body and sweetness/the lower end more alcohol and less body & sweetness. It might also help if you research the various liquid yeasts and choose those rated High Attenuati>Hi

Reply to
msclvr

Yes, that's true in general.

For an extract brew, the makeup of your water is pretty much unimportant...if it tastes good, it's fine for brewing. Some extracts are less fermentable than others..Laaglander, for instance, is about 55% fermentable. John Bull isn't much better. So one option is to change to a more fermentable extract. Another option is to use a portion of sugar in your beer. Not the heresy that some would have you believe. Many extarcts (again, Laaglander is a prime example) are formulated to be used with sugar. Sugar is 100% fermentable and adds no flavor to the beer, so it will lighten and dry out your beers. Contrary to the old wives tale, sugar does not cause cidery flavors in beer at amounts up to about 20%. The cidery taste is cause by old, oxidized extract and sugar adds no taste of its own to cover it. The old warnings about sugar were based on using outdated kits. Other than those tiups, about the only other way to control fermentability is to start brewing all grain. But I think if you started maybe .5-1 lb. of sugar to your brews, you'd see a marked improvement.

--------->Denny

Reply to
Denny Conn

On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 09:20:37 -0800, Denny Conn said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

Very true.

Another possibility for bringing the FG down would be a few beano tablets (If they're not available in NZ, it's from GlaxoSmithKline -

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It claims that it's "Alpha-galactosidase enzyme derived from Aspergillus niger - 150 GALU") in the wort. It breaks down some of the unfermentables. I've heard that using enough of it will bring the FG down below 1.000, but I've never tried to do that.

Reply to
Al Klein

Actaully, using ANY of it can likely cause the FG to go that low. I've experiemented wqith Beano several times. When I formulated the recipe specifically to use it, the beer came out OK. Using it to "save" a beer didn't produce very good results at all. You'd be much better off finding the cause of the high FG and dealing with it at the source.

---------->Denny

Reply to
Denny Conn

On Fri, 18 Feb 2005 08:56:28 -0800, Denny Conn said in alt.beer.home-brewing:

No matter how good you are, sometimes things just go wrong and you need a save - another shot of yeast, a beano tab, something. No one who's brewed more than a few times has never had a failure.

But you're right - beano isn't an alternative to learning how to do it the right way.

Reply to
Al Klein

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