My beer is turning into a monster...what to do?

[hoppyscotty]

5th brew into my home brewing career and I tried a TT Landlord clone over the weekend. I used a recipe from the Brewfather app. Nothing special, and brewed on Saturday. Brewday went pretty smoothly and ended up a couple of points up on OG. I've been tracking the fermentation via an iSpindel which I've used a couple of times before and it's been pretty good, and two and a half days on it seems to have already exceeded FG and still going, though levelling off. Currently its tracking at about 6 points below target FG (need to confirm with Hydrometer), so exceeding the OG by a couple of points and exceeding the FG by 6 or so points I'm looking at a much bigger beer than planned. Target was about 4.8% ABV and think I'm now looking more at 6%ABV. It's looking like fermentation is starting to level off so might settle where it is now, or even drop a couple more points down.

My question is what to do now? Just let it run and see what we've got? dilute the beer down more towards target ABV (what will that do to flavour), or maybe bung in some dry hops and try to make something different?

Recipe was Golden Promise malt, mash temp of 66 degrees for 90 mins, and Nottingham Ale yeast, with East Kent and Styrian Goldings hops at 60 mins, Styrian Goldings at 5 mins and and Fuggles at flame-out.

Thanks.

 

[An Ankoù]

I think your choice of yeast might be the problem. Lallemand describe the attenuation of their Nottingham yeast as "high", while Wyeast 1469 West Yorkshire ale is 67-71%, which is medium. If you only just hit the 66C mash temp and then it dropped a bit, that would also make for a more fermentable wort. If you're going to dilute the beer, it's worth noting that TT Landlord runs out at 4.3% rather than 4.8%, but I think I'd only dilute it sufficiently to take account of the difference in original gravity otherwise you're going to lose bitterness and hop flavour- the former will already be reduced a little because of the higher OG of the boil. If it were me, I'd leave it and go with it as it is. It might not be Landlord, but it should be a good beer anyway.

 

[Hazelwood Brewery]

I’d agree with @An Ankoù ‘s last comment and leave it alone. If you’ve mashed low and used a high attenuating yeast your beer may be lacking body for the style of ale. Adding water will thin it more. Brew another batch and enjoy this one as a different beer. If you don’t enjoy it you’ve also then got less to get through!

 

[hoppyscotty]

thanks. I was struggling with Mash temp. Had set the Brewzilla to 66 degrees, the target mash temp, but about 10 mins into the mash it was low, so cranked it up a bit. The Brewzilla was reading target temp but a separate digital thermometer had the wort temp a few degrees lower at the recirculation pump outlet and in the actual tun so probably on average was probably lower than target mash temp.

Oh well, you live and learn. I'll leave it and see what I've got. Ta. I have another batch of ingredients for another batch so can adjust mash temps.

 

[Zephyr259]

I'm another vote for leaving it in the hands of the yeast and enjoying what you get, going to be drier than expected but you probably won't be able to tell and should be a good pint.

 

[hoppyscotty]

Thanks again for the replies. I’m going to leave it and enjoy it and chalk it up to a learning experience and focus more on controlling mash temps for batch two.

now fermenting looks like it’s finished after levelling off is there any benefit in leaving it for the full ten days or bottle early, maybe this weekend after 7 days?