Brewing
Bottling the Organic Kölsch
15/08/10 21:30
After fermenting for 2 weeks, then 4 weeks in the secondary fermentor, 3 of which were at 45 degrees Fahrenheit, the organic Kölsch I brewed is finally ready to bottle. Keeping with the organic theme of this brew, I used 1 cup organic corn sugar even though the recipe calls for 3/4 cup. I find that I am not satisfied with the carbonation that 3/4 cup gives.
However, upon cracking up the secondary fermenter and racking it over to the bottling bucket, I was in for a bit of a surprise. My final gravity was 1.028 from an OG of 1.056. That's an apparent attenuation of only 47%. Thinking my refractometer was not calibrated correctly, I quickly took a reading with plain water. That yielded a gravity of 1.0, so it wasn't the measurement instrument. I retook a measurement once the priming sugar was mixed in, and the new reading was 1.030. I don't quite know what happened here. I used a yeast starter, and I had vigorous fermentation within 12 ours of pitching. Tasting the beer before I bottled it didn't yield a sweet malty flavor. In fact, the beer tasted pretty good, if a bit hoppy.So we'll see how it turn out after conditioning. If my gravity readings are correct, I might have some heavily carbonated beer ... probably should have gone with the 3/4 cup corn sugar like the recipe says.
However, upon cracking up the secondary fermenter and racking it over to the bottling bucket, I was in for a bit of a surprise. My final gravity was 1.028 from an OG of 1.056. That's an apparent attenuation of only 47%. Thinking my refractometer was not calibrated correctly, I quickly took a reading with plain water. That yielded a gravity of 1.0, so it wasn't the measurement instrument. I retook a measurement once the priming sugar was mixed in, and the new reading was 1.030. I don't quite know what happened here. I used a yeast starter, and I had vigorous fermentation within 12 ours of pitching. Tasting the beer before I bottled it didn't yield a sweet malty flavor. In fact, the beer tasted pretty good, if a bit hoppy.So we'll see how it turn out after conditioning. If my gravity readings are correct, I might have some heavily carbonated beer ... probably should have gone with the 3/4 cup corn sugar like the recipe says.
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