Beer too sweet

[BrewJas]

I’ve completed 2 All grain BIAB brews now and on tasting both they are very sweet to my palate.

I’m wondering if there’s something I’ve done which would result in a ‘sweet’ beer.

Both were SMASH blonde beers with golden promise malt, one with Amarillo hops the other with cascade. Based on the brewers friend calcs they should have been about 25 and 40 IBUs respectively.

I bottle primed both with granulated sugar, with varying quantities and none were overly primed.

My thoughts are

1. mash temp may have been too high - strike 72/73C for. 67C mash - resulting in sugars which haven’t been convertible by the yeast

2. Not enough yeast in the bottle to convert sugar to alcohol and therefore resulted in sweet beer? Theoretically the yeast should have converted all sugar to alcohol though?

Any thoughts / help would be appreciated!

 

[obscure]

How, long have you being conditioning the beer, and does it seem under carbonated. Sometimes when I drink a beer very young it’s just not finished with the second fermentation, leaving it very sweet and this clears up within a few weeks,

 

[BrewJas]

Left to condition for 2 weeks at room temp then chilled in the fridge. Even after 3 weeks it’s still sweet.

 

[MickDundee]

What was your SG and FG?

 

[Ajhutch]

If it’s properly carbonated then it won’t be to do with the priming sugar.

It could be mash temperature (what was the final gravity?). It could be malt choice, I’ve not used Golden Promise myself but others may have a view on whether it tastes sweeter than Maris Otter or Pilsner for example. And it could be that your actual IBUs are different to the calculations due to any number of factors.

It’s useful to take notes of each brew as you are, and compare similar brews over time, and compare your impressions to the “numbers”. You’ll gain a picture of what your process makes relative to your tastes and can make adjustments.

 

[BrewJas]

I ballsed up the OG and FG calcs on the first one and lost the bit of paper with the details on the second. I’d have thought that differences on gravity would have resulted in stronger of weaker ABV rather than sweeter beer?

 

[MickDundee]

I ballsed up the OG and FG calcs on the first one and lost the bit of paper with the details on the second. I’d have thought that differences on gravity would have resulted in stronger of weaker ABV rather than sweeter beer?

The higher the FG, the sweeter the beer. Your ABV calculation is based on how much sugar the yeast has chomped through.