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Competition beer finished to high. Help!

keithshead

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Hi, I have brewed a Baltic Porter as follows using my first ever lager yeast (that's the competition, any beer brewed with a bottom fermenting yeast);

19litre batch

3.3Kg Pils malt
0.3 Melanoiden (just to get rid of it)
1kg Brown malt
0.3kg Caramunich III
0.113kg Munich II
108g Black malt
108g Chocolate malt
500g Dry Amber Extract
500g Carapils (to boost up that head)
100g Saaz in total

Mashed at 66 degrees finishing at about 63 after 1 Hour
Fermented with plenty of White Labs German Bock Yeast

It started out as 1092 and was supposed to go all the way down to 1023 according to my Beersmith program but it has stopped around 1.030. I tried a little. it is nice but way too sweet.

It seemed to finish after 7days which i thought was kind of quick for a beer that heavy. The krausen totally collapsed back into the beer so it was definitely done.

I have raised the temperature for the diacatyle rest, i have roused it but to no avail.

I made a small starter with a pack of Saflager yeast to see if i can get it down anymore but there is no activity after a two days

So, can anyone suggest anything?

My local home brew store gave me a 3g pack of Copper Tun Dry Enzyme but i really don't want my beer to go way down 1.006 or something also feels like cheating. Perhaps if I put in a little? Anyone had any experience with this stuff?

Failing all this I was just going to lager it see what came out the other end and carbonate the hell out of it.

 
There are a few options, available.

First is just plain old time. Doppelbocks are often 8% or so and your numbers place you somewhere between 8.3% and 9%. The yeast may have gotten near their saturation point and will take their sweet time to finish out. At ale temps, my experience is about 1.004 drop per week. Keep an eye on pH if you can, because a change could indicate infection (downward pH) or autolysis (upward pH).

The recipe has a very high percentage of specialty malts, which do not have as much nutrient potential as base malt. I would look into getting a bit of yeast nutrient. Something that has some Zinc would be good (like Servomyces, if you can get it). Otherwise, just DAP will work. This will help the yeast finish out.

With a rockin' starter, finishing in 7 days is pretty good. That's not a problem, at all.
 
Cheers mate, i think all s good. Checked the gravity and it is now down to 1.023 just where it is supposed to be. Keeping it on the yeast till the end of this week (at about 4 degrees C right now) then racking it to secondary for another week then onto the keg for another 6 weeks lagering. The should be ready for the comp.

Also toying with the idea of making another lower gravity porter with the same yeast but with more black malt and blending it with the higher gravity one. It's nice but a bit chocolaty.

What say you?
 
Hi Keitshead and others,

I am a little bit struggling with the black malt/pils malt ratio in general. What could be the lowest ratio (just a hint) and what the highest ratio (going over to dominance)?
Regards,
Slurk
 
Are you making a Baltic Porter?
Not sure about the ratio but percentage wise i used about 2% black malt in my grist and it wasn't enough. ( i was kind of following a recipe... Sort of) But Strangely i used 1.7% chocolate malt and that has come through really well.

I think in beers in general though up to 1% black malt can be used for colouring purposes without adding flavour. Just looking in Ray Daniels Brewing Great Beers here and the upper end for Black malt use in a porter appears to be 10%. But I reckon you will have that quite strong pub ashtray flavour there.

I have not quite answered your question here but i hope it has helped.
 
Keitshead, thank you very much!
It was exactly the information I was looking for.
Regards,
Slurk
 
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