I just brewed my first wheat wine---inspired after a visit to Rubicon in Sacramento and having tasted their Winter Wheat Wine. Awesome---I must say.
I wanted to keep my ferm temp somewhat lower so I pitched about 3/4 of a quart of slurry of wlp 001/090. This is more than I have ever used before. The OG was 1083. Started it for the 1st 24 hours at 65, then 66 for day 2, then 67 for day three and now bumped it up to 68 to finish it off (as it started to slow down on the bubbles).
HERE IS THE PROBLEM: I just took a gravity reading and it is down to 1014. Not what I wanted for the wheat wine. I was shooting for about a 1019-1020 FG. It also looks like it will go a little lower the next few days. QUESTION #1: Would dropping the temp back down a few degrees cause the yeast to fall out before cleaning up the job? I'm not talking about crashing it, just a couple of degrees drop in an attempt to taper off the fermentation process.
In addition, it appears to have a little heat in the alcohol taste---but it could just be me as the beer still has a lot of yeast/etc floating around. While I have always understood that mainly high temps cause an alcohol off flavor I found that John Palmer indicates that too much yeast can as well. QUESTION #2: Ever heard of/experienced this? I hate hot alcohol flavors!
While I blew this being a wheat wine I guess now it'll be some sort of imperial wheat. Never had one!
I wanted to keep my ferm temp somewhat lower so I pitched about 3/4 of a quart of slurry of wlp 001/090. This is more than I have ever used before. The OG was 1083. Started it for the 1st 24 hours at 65, then 66 for day 2, then 67 for day three and now bumped it up to 68 to finish it off (as it started to slow down on the bubbles).
HERE IS THE PROBLEM: I just took a gravity reading and it is down to 1014. Not what I wanted for the wheat wine. I was shooting for about a 1019-1020 FG. It also looks like it will go a little lower the next few days. QUESTION #1: Would dropping the temp back down a few degrees cause the yeast to fall out before cleaning up the job? I'm not talking about crashing it, just a couple of degrees drop in an attempt to taper off the fermentation process.
In addition, it appears to have a little heat in the alcohol taste---but it could just be me as the beer still has a lot of yeast/etc floating around. While I have always understood that mainly high temps cause an alcohol off flavor I found that John Palmer indicates that too much yeast can as well. QUESTION #2: Ever heard of/experienced this? I hate hot alcohol flavors!
While I blew this being a wheat wine I guess now it'll be some sort of imperial wheat. Never had one!
