this has probably come up here before, apologies. I am making a bourbon county stout clone, and following a thread on homebrew talk, "bourbon county stout clone attempt". many have made it, and in the real world OG is usually around 1.130, and FG around 1.040s which puts it around 13% abv. can anyone tell me why BS is calculating my OG at 1.150 and FG at only 1.079 (10% abv)? yeast is 3 packs of wlp001, mash is 90 min at 152, both of which are pretty much standard for this brew. adjusting yeast type, pitch rate, mash length and temps do not change anything?
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big beer FG
- Thread starter itsratso
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BOB357
Grandmaster Brewer
WLP001 is listed as having an alcohol tolerance of 10% by default. If you feel you'll get more than that out of it you can change the limit in the listing by going to: Ingredients/Yeast, double clicking on WLP001 and changing as needed. Once you've done this, you'll need to reselect the yeast in your recipe to reflect the change. If you're brewing all grain, you'll need to lower your efficiency expectation unless you're using a lot of simple sugar or extract.
I have already lowered my efficiency to 60% which usually works well for big beers. I have also swapped out in BS the yeast for several others including dry yeast and San Diego 090. *edit: aha, you may be on to something here. if I swap in super high gravity 099 that lowers the FG to a whopping 1.024! so why are people reporting that they are hitting upper 1040s with 001?
sorry for all the replies, I don't think you can edit responses here. I re-entered 001 (wlp001, I think I may have accidentally entered a different 001 yeast) and got a FG of 1.057/13% abv, which is much more believable. I haven't brewed since before the pandemic and it feels like I need to relearn everything. thanx for the help.
BOB357
Grandmaster Brewer
With an adequate pitch of healthy yeast, nutrients and plenty of oxygen most strains will surpass manufacturers posted tolerance. They need to be on the conservative side because so many brewers don't provide an environment that allows yeasts to reach their potential.
McMullan
Brewer
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^^^^^This, which is what any brewing software needs to base its expectations on. It's kind of a dirty average for dirty brewers. In most cases, an experienced brewer who cares enough is going to get higher attenuation. Yeast health and pitching rate are key. The yeast cells drop out of fermentation at an accelerating rate as conditions (ethanol level mainly) become stressful. Under pitching results in lower attenuation even "stuck" fermentations. I don't think it's possible to over pitch big beers. It's only limited by economics.The attenuation level can be increased, within reason, by increasing the pitching rate. You might get comparable results if you follow an online recipe, or you might not. It's just the way it is.