Removing my beer from my yeast early to preserve sweetness?

[bscarl88]

In order to get more sweetness into my beer, I was thinking on removing it from the yeast early, so the yeast doesn't have time to break down all of the sugars. I didn't want to ruin my beer in case it's too early though. It's been in the fermenter for 7 days and went from 1.073 to 1.016 (I'm thinking i took a sample with too much sediment from the beginning). Is this a bad technique to add sweetness to a beer? I wanted to increase sweet, without increasing alcohol too much. What are your thoughts?

Also, i know my beer has alcohol content, but the past 4 batches, I have not seen the airlock bubble once, what's up with that?

 

[beergolf]

You really cannot stop the yeast. The yeast will eat until it is done. If you are bottling you MUST wait until it is done or you may have bottle bombs. Just let it go until you have a stable gravity reading for a few days.

Sweetness in a beer comes from the recipe, not by trying to stop the yeast from what it has been doing for a bazillion years.

BTW airlock bubbling means nothing. Just ignore that and let the gravity readings tell if it is done.



Is this one done yet?

 

[Hello]

Airlock activity isn't a sign of fermentation or lack thereof.
If you bottle beer before it is finished you are almost certainly going to end up with bottle bombs. To get a sweeter beer, use a yeast that has low attenuation.

 

[bscarl88]

I didn't mean go straight to bottles, I just meant i would remove it from the fermenter after 7 days (right now it's at 7.7%), and place it into a secondary for 2-3 weeks, then rerack into another fermenter for 1-2 weeks. I'd just be removing it from the majority of the yeast right now.

 

[bluemoose]

The yeast are in suspension. Removing the yeast cake will not solve what you are trying to solve. You can use specific malts to increase sweetness. 1.016 is not super dry. What is the style?

 

[bscarl88]

it's a belgian honey ale, but we added a little extra honey, as well as some left over malts from the last batch. I'll see if I can find the recipe typed out somewhere

 

[jro238]

Don't try to stop your fermentation prematurely, you will end up with bad beer/bad habits/bottle bombs. I have heard this idea far too many times from brewers and it never turns out well. Final gravity is a yeast and recipe issue. If you want a higher finishing gravity, mash at a higher temperature.

Technically you could toss in some sodium metabisulfite to help taper off the fermentation (won't stop it if it is going strong) but I personally think this is bad practice in beer (it also will stop you from naturally carbing bottles).

If you want some sweetness in a beer that it finished fermenting you can try adding some lactose or maltodextrin.

 

[bscarl88]

thanks for all the information everyone the other option that I've done before which worked well, was boiling brown sugar, cooling it, and adding it to the secondary

 

[bluemoose]

Doesn't your yeast just attack the brown sugar?

 

[Qhrumphf]

A) In addition to bottle bombs as noted above, stalled fermentation (intentional or otherwise) can cause big problems with off-flavors like acetaldehyde or diacetyl. The intermediary compounds leftover from fermentation that yeast will normally clean up when allowed to follow their cycle to through completion.

B) Racking off the yeast early may or may not (but probably won't) stop the fermentation. If may cause a little under-attenuation, but at the same time still cause the above off-flavor problems. Plus the yeast may just pick back up in the bottle, and cause the previously mentioned bottle bombs. Or may attenuate to where it's supposed to, but still inhibit the cleanup phase of fermentation. Point is, it's not a good idea to do for a number of reasons.

If you REALLY want to add sweetness and body, you could potentially bottle with some lactose in addition to your priming sugar. It's unfermentable, and will leave a residual sweetness (a common component in many milk stouts).

 

[flars]

I agree that adding lactose would be the best way to sweeten the beer. I would add it to the fermentor though.