"I really f-ed it up this time didn't i my dear"

[dub]

Today was the day to transfer my Racer 5 clone to my secondary fermenter for dry hopping. Two things happened that completely ruined my evening, and i would appreciate your calming words and advise.

1. I missed my target FG. Not sure why, but i had a very healthy fermentation using WLP051 California V that i pitched with a 1L starter. I kept a fairly consistent temperature between 65-68. My target fermentation was 1.020 and should have been 1.017. I know its close, but i'm wondering what i could have done better to hit the mark next time.

2. While transferring, using the siphon with pantyhose attached, my siphon stopped with over a gallon of beer left in the primary. I tried everything i could think of to get it going, completely removing the pantyhose, the cane tip and still couldn't get it to go. As a last resort i put the pantyhose over the tip of the carboy and tipped, reclaiming as much as i could. Currently the beer is over an inch below the 5G mark and i dry hopped it anticipating all 5 gallons. besides more bitterness, what else can/should i expect from this batch?

3. How crucial is temperature in the secondary fermentation? What should it be at? I want to transfer the beer to the garage, but its in the 40's there now.

Your ideas and advise are appreciated.

 

[coypoo]

1. "Anticipated" OG is just based off the average attenuation of a certain yeast. What was your OG and what yeast did you use? 0.003 isnt that much to worry about.

2. Dry hopping will not add any bitterness to beer at all. It only adds aroma (maybe some flavor). Your 1-inch below is not that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.

3. Secondary temp isnt that crucial, but then again, neither is secondary. You could have waited for fermentation to be complete then dry-hopped in the primary if you want. Less to clean, and works just as well.

Overall, you've done nothing extreme to your beer, and you just need to relax. It actually takes a lot to ruin a beer and you've done nothing close to that.

 

[BrookdaleBrew]

The only problem I see is that if you poured the last bit of your finished beer from primary to secondary, you probably created some splashing, which introduced oxygen into your beer.

Luckily for you, IPAs are best young, so drink that batch up as soon as you can before oxidation sets in!

 

[BeerJorge]

1. One thing to keep in mind is that yeast don't always attenuate at the same levels...
California Ale V Yeast has attenuation levels of 70 - 75%... (notice it's a range, not an exact number)

To calculate Apparent attenuation use the formula (OG - FG)/ (OG-1) = App. Attenuation

So if your OG was around 1.066 then your apparent attenuation would be...
(1.066 - 1.020)/(1.066 - 1) = .70 or 70%

If you were to have finished at 1.017, then you would get...
(1.066 - 1.017)/(1.066 - 1) = .74 or 74%

Either way you are still in the right ballpark...

2. 1 inch won't affect your dry hopping... no bittering is given to your beer with dry-hopping...

3. It depends... crucial as in remaining stable like it should during primary? not crucial at all... crucial as in time it takes to condition? depends again... if you store your beer at 40 F, you are lagering your beer... lager simply means to store cold... you beer can actually benefit from this, but lower temperatures means your yeast will work slower (or in your case probably not at all), which will take longer to condition than if you were to condition your beer in the 60's or low 70's...

The major factor that will determine whether your beer will turn out good or not by lagering it will be how clean it was before you dropped the temperature since ale yeast goes dormant below 55 F...

 

[Docjowles]

1) Also some brands of extract are more fermentable than others. It's possible the one you got just isn't as fermentable as the one the recipe author had. If you are REALLY worried about it, replace like 10-20% of the extract with the same weight in table sugar, which will be easily fermented.

2) Do you have an auto siphon? They are the best thing since sliced bread and will solve most of your annoying siphon issues.