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Trying to achieve a higher ABV and have a question!

Josh_Saratin

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Tucson, Arizona
Hello Everyone,
A quick little description of what I am trying to understand: I found a recipe online for a Citra Pale Ale (http://homebrewacademy.com/citra-pale-ale/) in which I made into a DME recipe before I switched to all grain and turned out really good. I am now doing this on my all grain system. I planned this brew into BS2, the recipe exp OG is 1.056 and final is 1.011 to get ABV of 5.9% is definitely very different than what I think it should be in BS2. I have scaled this to 15 gallons as in the attached BS recipe... I am operating at about a 70% BH efficiency (based on my last hefeweizen 12 gallon batch). So, because of this I had to adjust the OG with the BS tool to acheive 1.056 which added more grain of course. I am trying to Mash at the recommended 154F... and when I set this to my mash profile for the brew, the final gravity increases from 1.014 to 1.015 which is already way higher than is should be... This bring the abv to 5.4 from 5.6% rather than achieving 5.9% at the same mash temperature of 154? So, in summary. I would like to keep my OG the same, decrease my FG to around 1.012 without adjusting the mash temperature to ensure it has decent body and mouth feel. Please let me know what you all think or would like me to try to explain something more. Thanks in advance to anyone who comes up with an opinion on this...
 

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  • Citra Pale Ale.bsmx
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The difference between your OG and your FG, which determines the alcohol content, is set by the combination of the fermentability of your wort and the attenuation of your yeast. You can increase the wort fermentability by lowering the mash temperature, but you said you want to mash at 154 F so that is out. You can cut your base grain bill a bit and add sugar (table sugar or corn sugar) instead to arrive at the same OG but with higher fermentability since the sugar will be 100% fermentable. Don't go very far down this path because the sugar will give you a thin beer if you use too much. You could also use a different yeast that has higher attenuation, but that could change the flavor profile of your beer.

Keep in mind that the FG estimate in BeerSmith is just an estimate, and lots of things can affect it. I just got 83% attenuation from a yeast specified at 67-71%, so my ABV ended up at 6.0% instead of the BeerSmith predicted 5.3%.

--GF
 
Hey,
Thank you so much for that, that totally makes sense. I think a great idea would be to brew it and see how my first batch and the numbers come out. From there I can adjust or do as you suggested.

GigaFemto said:
The difference between your OG and your FG, which determines the alcohol content, is set by the combination of the fermentability of your wort and the attenuation of your yeast. You can increase the wort fermentability by lowering the mash temperature, but you said you want to mash at 154 F so that is out. You can cut your base grain bill a bit and add sugar (table sugar or corn sugar) instead to arrive at the same OG but with higher fermentability since the sugar will be 100% fermentable. Don't go very far down this path because the sugar will give you a thin beer if you use too much. You could also use a different yeast that has higher attenuation, but that could change the flavor profile of your beer.

Keep in mind that the FG estimate in BeerSmith is just an estimate, and lots of things can affect it. I just got 83% attenuation from a yeast specified at 67-71%, so my ABV ended up at 6.0% instead of the BeerSmith predicted 5.3%.

--GF
 
As GigaFemto stated, the BS estimate is just that, an estimate. Another thing to consider is that brewing the same recipe on a different system will almost always produce different results, so you've got the right idea. Brew it first and if you feel you need to, tweak it the next time.
 
Hey Bob,
Thank you for that as well! Will do.

BOB357 said:
As GigaFemto stated, the BS estimate is just that, an estimate. Another thing to consider is that brewing the same recipe on a different system will almost always produce different results, so you've got the right idea. Brew it first and if you feel you need to, tweak it the next time.
 
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