Crazy attenuation

[Jhedrick83]

In a different thread I had asked about dumping hot/cold break into the fermentor. Several guys said they just dump the whole batch instead of trying to just rack off clear wort. So I gave it a shot on a Patersbier I made. Same brew day as usual except I emptied the whole kettle contents (except most of the hop matter which really settled below the ball valve). Same fermentation temp schedule. I’m 5.5 days in and my OG of 1.052 has rocketed down to 1.003 (touched 1.002 according to the tilt) for an attenuation of 94.23%. I’ve had WLP 530 get me to 88-90 percent after 10-14 days on some of my dubbels/tripels/quads but 94+ after 5 days seems crazy. A fluke or maybe a function of the presence of some compounds that are beneficial to fermentation in the hot/cold break? Obviously, I haven’t tried it yet and taste matters most to me but I’m just a little taken aback.

 

[Plop]

I made a dubbel recently with WLP 3787, the Westmalle strain, same as WLP 530. It went from 1.066 to 1.003, 95% attenuation. It tastes pretty good

This seems to happen quite often with that strain according to what I’ve read.

 

[Sotko]

I’ve had a similar experience with 3787. It took a tripel from .084 to .003, 96% attenuation in about 10 days.

I can’t image trub would have much impact on attenuation. I would think any nutrients the trub adds would already be in solution and if you are using yeast nutrient they should have more than enough to work with.

I think wort fermentability is the main difference. Quads tend to have more unfermentable sugars from the dark candy sugar than a tripel or patersbier would.

 

[RM-MN]

In a different thread I had asked about dumping hot/cold break into the fermentor. Several guys said they just dump the whole batch instead of trying to just rack off clear wort. So I gave it a shot on a Patersbier I made. Same brew day as usual except I emptied the whole kettle contents (except most of the hop matter which really settled below the ball valve). Same fermentation temp schedule. I’m 5.5 days in and my OG of 1.052 has rocketed down to 1.003 (touched 1.002 according to the tilt) for an attenuation of 94.23%. I’ve had WLP 530 get me to 88-90 percent after 10-14 days on some of my dubbels/tripels/quads but 94+ after 5 days seems crazy. A fluke or maybe a function of the presence of some compounds that are beneficial to fermentation in the hot/cold break? Obviously, I haven’t tried it yet and taste matters most to me but I’m just a little taken aback.

As mentioned, the mash and the yeast variety make a difference as does fermentation temperature and to a small extent, the pitch rate. Also, while the Tilt hydrometer is a fun tool to see how fast or slow the fermentation is, they are not noted for being exceptionally accurate as hydrometers.