Hitting Target FG

Brewing processes and methods. How to brew using extract, partial or all-grain. Tips and tricks.

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pach907
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Hitting Target FG

Post by pach907 »

Okay I think I know the answer to this but would like some input. I've been having a lot of fun brewing some of the recipes in the book, Brewing the Classics. I've been able to hit the pre-boil gravities and the original gravities without any difficulty. However the final gravities seem to finish up a little lower than the target gravities. Here is my question. Should I check the gravity of the batch when it gets close to finishing and immediately rack it into the keg and put it in the kegerator and start conditioning/carbonating it as soon as it hits the FG to stop attenuation, or should I figure out what is wrong (if anything is) with my mashing; maybe mash a few degrees hotter, to reach the target FG/attenuation? Just wondering what you folks might thing about this. As usual thanks for the input. Happy brewing!

Charlie
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slothrob
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ng FG

Post by slothrob »

The best approach to raising the FG, when you don't want to change the ingredients, is to raise the mash temperature. This is one of those parameters that varies between systems due to the number of other variables. A recipe author can give you a suggested mash temperature, based on their system, but you may well find that you need to mash a couple degrees warmer or cooler to get the same results.

I'd avoid trying to elevate the FG by interrupting fermentation by chilling the beer. During fermentation yeast makes a number of fermentation byproducts that are considered off-flavors. Healthy yeast consume these byproducts toward the end of fermentation, but they will be left in the beer if the process in prematurely truncated.
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pach907
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Post by pach907 »

Thank you. You just confirmed my theory. I've read so many books in the last six months to a year that I've lost track of which book said what. I knew that but just couldn't find where I'd read it. Again thank you.
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FG

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Good luck. I'd be interested to hear how successful you are.
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pach907
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Post by pach907 »

Darn... Well, I thought you might get a kick out of this so here goes. I started this thread because I brewed a recipe that I thought should have had more body than it did. Actually, several recipes that should have been a little "heavier" body wise, but turned out a bit on the "light" side. Oh, and I finally found the book that gave me the same advice you did... thanks. It was JP's How to brew by the way. Anyway, earlier this week I had all of my brewing kettles, tuns, LTs stashed out of the way so I could clean the shop, and while taking a break and enjoying a pint of, this year's first batch of pumpkin ale (the reason this whole thread was started) I looked at my kettles. They were all lined up against the wall... with the thermometers staring at me... My brew kettle's thermometer read 60ºF. My liquor tank's thermometer read 60ºF and my darn mash tun's thermometer read 64ºF almost 65ºF!!! I guess I've been mashing my grains 4ºF cooler than I thought I was. Well, needless to say, the shop didn't get cleaned, but you can bet all of my equipment and gages are calibrated to the gnats a#* now! Next brew date is 9-10. I'll let you know in Oct if this was the problem. Again, thank you for the advice.
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