Help figuring out what went wrong. Milkshake ipa

[samircanada]

Hi everyone I am still a beginner brewer. Have about 10 brews so far.

I tried a mango passionfruit milkshake IPA. About 15 lbs of grain. Mostly 2 row and oats with a bit of honey malts. 0.5lbs of lactose in the boil. It was very cold out so after 60 min boil I ended up with a bit under 5 gals in fermenter. OG measured with refractometer was 1.068. Very active fermentation took place right away and seemed fine. After 2 weeks of dry hopping and primary I transferred 4 gals to secondary on top of the 3lbs of mashed fruits. I didn't take a gravity reading coming from primary unfortunately. After 1 week of secondary I was left with 3.5 gals to bottle.
I usually keg so I added priming sugar before taking reading which was a mistake (.75cup dme) the FG reading after was close to 1.040. I was shocked it was that high. Is it just the 0.5 lbs of lactose and priming sugar, possibly some sugars from the fruits in secondary?
The smell and taste from the primary was very alcoholic. I am worried about having made beer bombs.

Thanks for your help.

 

[thehaze]

FG readings will change when adding DME or sugar to them, so check gravity it before.

0.5 lb lactose is a little amount and cannot be the cause of the 1.040 FG. You probably had an imcomplete fermentation due to high mash temp., yeast stress, etc. But just to be clear, do you use a hydrometer or refractometer to check final gravity readings?

Fruit will add some sugar to the beer, which will be fermented out by the yeast. It just take time. Fruit can also drop the pH of the beer due to their natural acidity.

 

[Jag75]

What yeast did you use? Starter ? What temp ? I'll give you props cuz this is a big task beer for a 10th batch lol.

 

[RM-MN]

Hi everyone I am still a beginner brewer. Have about 10 brews so far.

I tried a mango passionfruit milkshake IPA. About 15 lbs of grain. Mostly 2 row and oats with a bit of honey malts. 0.5lbs of lactose in the boil. It was very cold out so after 60 min boil I ended up with a bit under 5 gals in fermenter. OG measured with refractometer was 1.068. Very active fermentation took place right away and seemed fine. After 2 weeks of dry hopping and primary I transferred 4 gals to secondary on top of the 3lbs of mashed fruits. I didn't take a gravity reading coming from primary unfortunately. After 1 week of secondary I was left with 3.5 gals to bottle.
I usually keg so I added priming sugar before taking reading which was a mistake (.75cup dme) the FG reading after was close to 1.040. I was shocked it was that high. Is it just the 0.5 lbs of lactose and priming sugar, possibly some sugars from the fruits in secondary?
The smell and taste from the primary was very alcoholic. I am worried about having made beer bombs.

Thanks for your help.

Since you mentioned taking the OG with a refractometer, did you also take the FG with it too? They don't read correctly when alcohol is present. Even with that, 1.040 seems pretty high for a refractometer reading of FG. Did you get the DME thoroughly mixed? If you haven't already bottled this batch, leave it in the fermenter until the DME you added has fermented out, then take the FG with a hydrometer and let us know that reading.

 

[RM-MN]

The smell and taste from the primary was very alcoholic.

With that high of OG and then adding fruit too you have a quite alcoholic beverage so tasting alcoholic isn't out of the question. Fermenting without good temperature control will also cause a very alcoholic taste as you may have some fusel alcohol.

 

[samircanada]

Refractometer is all I use for readings.

Used white labs pure pitch wlp001 California ale. One pack pitch right in. No starter. The krausen and yeast activity was downright violent when I checked on it in first few days. Perhaps it failed still to reach fg..I'll never know since I failed to take a sample before getting it secondary.

Regarding mash temp this could be an issue. I switched to a 2" thermometer in my kettle / mash tub (I use a false bottom in the kettle) because it was getting in the way of my chiller. It was cold and I saw the mash temp went super low. So I fired it up a bit and shot over the mash target by a bit. I still had 1.068 Og.

Fermemented in my basement at about 68 degrees. One thing I am never sure is. Are you supposed to siphon a little bit of yeast from the bottom to the secondary? I assume it's dead and you don't want to do that. But I added fruit to secondary for a week...could it be that the yeast didn't manage to convert those sugars?

I get it's not that much lactose but I only ended up with 3 gals of beer. What would 0.5 lbs of it do to the fg reading?.

 

[samircanada]

Thanks so much for the replies everyone. I definitely am learning some valuable lessons. At this point I am just hoping the bottles don't explode.
The taste from bottling was very good so I'll be happy if it carbonates. What should I do to make sure they don't blow? Should I sacrifice a bottle and open it now (2 days after?)

 

[Jag75]

Man I'm not sure tbo. I guess you could crack one and check it with a hydrometer to see if its changed. I would hate for you to have bottle bombs . Should always check before you bottle it to see if its truly done. We learn stuff as we go .

 

[RM-MN]

Refractometer is all I use for readings.

While the refractometer is wonderful for taking the pre-boil or OG the hydrometer is best for FG. If using the refractometer you need to use a correction calculator and even then the calculated amount my not be completely accurate. Taking multiple readings with the refractometer (2 or 3) when you think you are at FG will tell you if the beer is still changing but you won't be as sure if you have reached FG or have a stalled fermentation.

 

[samircanada]

Thank you for your help.i shattered my hydrometer a while back. Thanks to your reply I found a calculator online. http://seanterrill.com/2012/01/06/refractometer-calculator/

I now ballparks my FG at 1.020. Considering the sample fg contained priming sugar and some lactose I am hoping it's gonna be fine. Checked on the bottles now, they all have a layer of yeast at bottom. Sign of the cross now and pray it turns out. Actually imploring the all mighty is part and parcel of my brewing philosophy as you can tell I leave a lot of factors to the beer gods.

 

[CascadesBrewer]

I now ballparks my FG at 1.020. Considering the sample fg contained priming sugar and some lactose I am hoping it's gonna be fine.

Yea!! I believe that 1/2 a lb of Lactose into a 5 gal batch adds about 4 gravity points (so would boost your final gravity by 0.004)...so 1.020 does not seem too far out of the expected FG for that beer.

 

[Calder]

Priming sugar will add about .003, so you ended up around 1.017.

0.5 lbs lactose adds .003.

Your OG seems low for 15 lbs of grain. That's about 63% system efficiency.