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- Jan 19, 2016
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Ya gotta love it when a plan comes together!
Attenuation has been a little elusive for me on a lot of brews. Getting that last few percentage points is hard. When beers are 1.011 instead of 1.009 it doesn't hurt much but it would be nice if they get there. It seems like I don't end up breaking 80% attenuation very often. That's acceptable and expected with British yeasts but I'd like to be seeing better with Chico and lager yeasts.
I had occasion to do a batch where highest alcohol production was the most important factor - body and flavor not so much. The most alcohol-tolerant yeast I had on hand for it was Nottingham so I decided to give it a go. I did a basic grist of good 2-row plus 10% Vienna and some Acidulated malt. The most important piece of the puzzle was mash temp and duration. My typical routine is to start with a dough-in/protein rest and add liquor and raise temp to 148 and hold for about an hour and then add and raise to 158 and hold for a bit before raising to mash-out temp. This time I intentionally started my Beta Amylase rest at a lower temp - less than145 - and eased it up to 148 over the course of a couple of hours. Then I pushed a little higher but only to 150 or so over another hour. I did a combination of simple infusion (still) rest and RIMS lautering to keep the temp steady.
The OG I wanted maxed out my tun and I had to do without a sparge. That always hurts efficiency but I still approached 80% efficiency out of the mash. I used the opportunity to split/gyle some wort for a 1.044 lager wort as well so overall efficiency was helped.
The wort I got for the "high-gravity" batch was 1.072 and I pitched the Notty at 78 degrees right off the chiller. I used 3 packets of yeast pitched dry onto the wort and since I had splashed a huge head of foam going into the fermenter, I didn't bother with O2. I turned the temp controller down to 65 so it wouldn't go crazy with a monster krausen overnight and reset to 68 next day.
I checked the gravity on the morning of Day 3, less than 60 hours in, and the gravity was 1.008!! I reset the temp to 76 to wring out any little bit of extra activity but even if it doesn't go further that's pushing 90% attenuation!! Distillers' yeast will take things further but for a beer yeast (British stain, no less) that's pretty impressive!
It'll be interesting to see how the lager split finishes out. Same mash temp, etc, with big pitch of Apex Berlin yeast and fermented at 52 degrees - this morning (day 4) it was at about 1.020 and I raised temp for D-rest. It'll be pretty awesome if that one goes to 1.007 or so.
Attenuation has been a little elusive for me on a lot of brews. Getting that last few percentage points is hard. When beers are 1.011 instead of 1.009 it doesn't hurt much but it would be nice if they get there. It seems like I don't end up breaking 80% attenuation very often. That's acceptable and expected with British yeasts but I'd like to be seeing better with Chico and lager yeasts.
I had occasion to do a batch where highest alcohol production was the most important factor - body and flavor not so much. The most alcohol-tolerant yeast I had on hand for it was Nottingham so I decided to give it a go. I did a basic grist of good 2-row plus 10% Vienna and some Acidulated malt. The most important piece of the puzzle was mash temp and duration. My typical routine is to start with a dough-in/protein rest and add liquor and raise temp to 148 and hold for about an hour and then add and raise to 158 and hold for a bit before raising to mash-out temp. This time I intentionally started my Beta Amylase rest at a lower temp - less than145 - and eased it up to 148 over the course of a couple of hours. Then I pushed a little higher but only to 150 or so over another hour. I did a combination of simple infusion (still) rest and RIMS lautering to keep the temp steady.
The OG I wanted maxed out my tun and I had to do without a sparge. That always hurts efficiency but I still approached 80% efficiency out of the mash. I used the opportunity to split/gyle some wort for a 1.044 lager wort as well so overall efficiency was helped.
The wort I got for the "high-gravity" batch was 1.072 and I pitched the Notty at 78 degrees right off the chiller. I used 3 packets of yeast pitched dry onto the wort and since I had splashed a huge head of foam going into the fermenter, I didn't bother with O2. I turned the temp controller down to 65 so it wouldn't go crazy with a monster krausen overnight and reset to 68 next day.
I checked the gravity on the morning of Day 3, less than 60 hours in, and the gravity was 1.008!! I reset the temp to 76 to wring out any little bit of extra activity but even if it doesn't go further that's pushing 90% attenuation!! Distillers' yeast will take things further but for a beer yeast (British stain, no less) that's pretty impressive!
It'll be interesting to see how the lager split finishes out. Same mash temp, etc, with big pitch of Apex Berlin yeast and fermented at 52 degrees - this morning (day 4) it was at about 1.020 and I raised temp for D-rest. It'll be pretty awesome if that one goes to 1.007 or so.
