Wyeast 1084 attenuation

Strange little beasties, get info about different yeasts and how to use them.

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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

Post by Beer-lord »

Wish I could offer more than has already been offered here but I can't. Rousing the yeast has only gotten me a point or two in the past but this article offers 1 thing not mentioned here........bugs!
https://beerandbrewing.com/6-tools-to-u ... mentation/
I'm not interested in it but it is an option for some.

I used 001 which I use all the time with no problems at all so more proof I know the yeast is good, oxygenized and more than enough. It's just the mash temp fouls things up. My next stout will be mashed at 152-153 and I'll add oats to give me the body I want. (which I added in this beer anyway)
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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

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bpgreen wrote:Before doing any of the following, give it a full week instead of 3-4 days.

I'm stumped. Nottingham is usually a beast. I use it a single pack in 5 gallon batches in the mid 50s in the winter and get attenuation approaching (and occasionally exceeding) 80%. I generally do partial mashes and don't mash as high as you did, but I'd still have expected it to chew through more of the sugars than it did.

When I saw that Notty didn't do anything, I took another look and saw that it was an all grain batch and you mashed at 154, which is going to favor alpha amylase, resulting in more unfermentable sugars and a fuller body. But I plugged all of your ingredients into BeerSmith, and selected full body. With a brewhouse efficiency of 73%, I got an expected OG of 1.061. Selecting full body had it give a mash temperature of 156 (so slightly higher than yours). With those parameters, it gave an expected FG of 1.018 (with just the 1084).

I think the yeast energizer would be a waste of time and money. You added some fresh Nottingham yeast and Lallemand says that Nottinghams already has a reserve of carbohydrates and unsaturated fatty acids so aeration isn't required.

I wonder if your mash temperatures were higher than you thought, leading to more unfermentable sugars. But I'm not sure if that would really do this. I don't know that beta amylase is very active at 154, anyway, so most (if not all) of the conversion was already being done by alpha amylase.

So, as I said, I'm stumped. You've added Nottingham and it hasn't done anything. Mashani's fear with it was that it might ferment too much (I considered suggesting it in my first post, but didn't for that reason). Since Notty ships with the UFAs and carbohydrates it needs, yeast energizer shouldn't be needed. If your water is really low in minerals, it's possible that you should add some yeast nutrient (something like DAP or food grade urea--don't cheap out and grab some from the fertilizer bag). But if that were the case, you'd have seen poor attenuation on every all-grain batch you've done, and that doesn't seem to be the case (unless this is your first all-grain batch).

At this point, I think I'd be inclined to add some white sugar as makhani suggested. Theoretically, you should be ok just dumping it in, but if I were you, I'd boil it first and let it cool before adding it. If you boil it, make sure you use enough water for the sugar and also make sure you don't boil it long enough to turn it into candy (you probably already know that, but I'd rather tell you something you know than omit telling you something you don't know). As mashani said, that might wake up the yeast, and if it doesn't, it will at least add some alcohol to balance out the extra malt.

Are you kegging this or bottling it? If you're kegging, I'm much less concerned that there's some sort of "pause" involved. I've had some batches made with older extract that seemed to be done, but the gravity dropped while they were in the keg. If you keg and that happens, the beer is over carbonated for the first few pours. If you bottle and that happens, you get bottle bombs.
Thanks for your really detailed answer.I might have answered most of the questions that you asked but they were scattered over a few posts.
I’m kegging this so,I’m not worried about bottle bombs. My mash started at 154 and ended at 153. The Nottingham fermenting is at 64f. I might try some sugar. I’m going to brew this same recipe tomorrow and use WL 002 (or is it 1002?) It’s the English Ale Yeast.

I’ve decide to make this a beer that I’m going to try really nail. I’ll be doing some tweaking.


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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

Post by mashani »

A little sugar will give the yeast something to eat, so they should at least wake up and maybe do something. Even if it doesn't work the extra alcohol might help balance the beer a bit. Also if it doesn't work and you find the beer a bit cloying then you might want to carb it a bit higher then you would normally, that will also help balance the beer a bit (both are Belgian brewing tricks). If you don't like the extra carb you could always vent it a bit and lower the pressure since you are kegging.

I would for sure follow BP's thoughts about mash temps and test your thermometer and make sure it's accurate. It might not be what happened, but it certainly doesn't hurt to be safe.
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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

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Banjo-guy, I'm curious on what's happened since your last post on this beer. Any luck? I've not had any.....added more yeast and I'm still at 1.030. I'm going to keg it next weekend and next time, just mash at 152-153 and not deal with this again.
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Wyeast 1084 attenuation

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Beer-lord wrote:Banjo-guy, I'm curious on what's happened since your last post on this beer. Any luck? I've not had any.....added more yeast and I'm still at 1.030. I'm going to keg it next weekend and next time, just mash at 152-153 and not deal with this again.
I managed to drop the gravity by one point to 1.023.
That’s hardly worth mentioning.
I’ve kegged and sampled this beer and it doesn’t taste overly sweet. I’m really surprised given that I was shooting for 1.018.

I’ve got the same grain and hop bill fermenting right now and it has slowed down at 1.029. I hope it doesn’t stall.
I was very careful to pitch an active large starter of WL 002 into this latest batch.

I’ve been trying a lot of Oatmeal Stouts this week. Samuel Smith is the bench mark for this style. That beer is sweeter than I Iike. The other beers that I tried were all from American brewers and would be drier I think.
I like the American Style much better than the bench mark English brew.


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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

Post by mashani »

If you love everything about a recipe except that it's a tad too sweet, then the easy answer to dry it out a bit is to sub some sugar for some grain.

Belgians do it, Brits do it (and did it extensively, pretty much in every beer in the early to mid 1900s), American brewers like Russian River do it in their bigger beers, there is nothing wrong with it, I do it all the time, even in 5%ish British beers that I want a bit drier.
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Wyeast 1084 attenuation

Post by Banjo-guy »

I’m curious to see how this beer turns out with the WL 002 yeast. I’m not done tweaking this recipe yet.
I’m hSamuel Smith Oatmeal Stout is too sweet for me. I only mention Samuel Smith because it’s always held up as the beer that defines the style.
I’ve only entered one beer in a competition but it has motivated me to brew more frequently.


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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

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I found this article From John Palmer about attenuation very concise and informative. I don’t use yeast nutrient but because I reuse my yeast it seems like I should be adding it. I also didn’t pitch the Notty at high krausen.

https://byo.com/article/attenuation-advanced-brewing/


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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

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Banjo-guy wrote:I found this article From John Palmer about attenuation very concise and informative. I don’t use yeast nutrient but because I reuse my yeast it seems like I should be adding it. I also didn’t pitch the Notty at high krausen.

https://byo.com/article/attenuation-advanced-brewing/


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What should I do when brewing this beer to get the FG lower?
I could lower the mash temp but I want a full body for an Oatmeal Stout. Maybe I should lower the mash temp and increase the oatmeal addition. I think it would be a good idea to raise the chloride to sulfate ratio.
What about the mash ph? I don’t use a meter but Bru’n Water had the ph at 5.5.
What I just learned is that the dark grains are contributing to the low attenuation. I didn’t know about that before.


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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

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I’m not 100% buying the dark grains discussion but what do I know? Next time I brew a stout I’ll mash at 153 and just use more oats and some Carapils for a smoother, better mouth feel.


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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

Post by bpgreen »

Banjo-guy wrote:
Banjo-guy wrote:I found this article From John Palmer about attenuation very concise and informative. I don’t use yeast nutrient but because I reuse my yeast it seems like I should be adding it. I also didn’t pitch the Notty at high krausen.

https://byo.com/article/attenuation-advanced-brewing/


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What should I do when brewing this beer to get the FG lower?
I could lower the mash temp but I want a full body for an Oatmeal Stout. Maybe I should lower the mash temp and increase the oatmeal addition. I think it would be a good idea to raise the chloride to sulfate ratio.
What about the mash ph? I don’t use a meter but Bru’n Water had the ph at 5.5.
What I just learned is that the dark grains are contributing to the low attenuation. I didn’t know about that before.


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The higher final gravity is what gives it the body. If it's ending too high, you need to do something to get it to end lower (mashing at a lower temperature, adding white sugar, etc). That will give you a lower gravity and a thinner beer. The two go hand-in-hand. You can't have a low FG/full body beer.
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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

Post by Banjo-guy »

bpgreen wrote:
Banjo-guy wrote:
Banjo-guy wrote:I found this article From John Palmer about attenuation very concise and informative. I don’t use yeast nutrient but because I reuse my yeast it seems like I should be adding it. I also didn’t pitch the Notty at high krausen.

https://byo.com/article/attenuation-advanced-brewing/


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What should I do when brewing this beer to get the FG lower?
I could lower the mash temp but I want a full body for an Oatmeal Stout. Maybe I should lower the mash temp and increase the oatmeal addition. I think it would be a good idea to raise the chloride to sulfate ratio.
What about the mash ph? I don’t use a meter but Bru’n Water had the ph at 5.5.
What I just learned is that the dark grains are contributing to the low attenuation. I didn’t know about that before.


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The higher final gravity is what gives it the body. If it's ending too high, you need to do something to get it to end lower (mashing at a lower temperature, adding white sugar, etc). That will give you a lower gravity and a thinner beer. The two go hand-in-hand. You can't have a low FG/full body beer.
I think it’s ending higher than the expected FG for the yeast and style. I’ve got the same brew going right now with White Labs 002. It’s stuck at 1.029 and I did everything right.
I pitched a good sized starter at the right temperature and oxygenated the wort. It is frustrating when I’m looking for 1.018 ( or close to ) and aren’t attenuating into the range expected for an Oatmeal Stout as specified by BJCP recommendations. I assume those guidelines are worth using.
They list 1.010-1.018. I’m really nowhere close and my recipe is basically from an NHC gold medal winner for Oatmeal Stout.

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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

Post by mashani »

If you think dark grains are messing with your mash ph, then do a 24 hour cold steep of the dark grains, and add that to the boil (post mash).

That's what I do all the time now although I just like how they turn out better that way, not necessarily because I'm fiddling with my mash. Not sure how you do that with a Zymatic though.

Otherwise the only things I got are lower your mash temp a couple degrees, or sub some sugar, or pitch even more yeast then you are unless you are already pitching a hella lot. Based on your target FG I'm guessing you were close to 1.064 or so. At my current pitch rates, I would pitch 300 billion cells into that beer.
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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

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I'm sorry to keep semi-jacking this thread since I used 001 but since I did brew a stout and mashed high and am having similar problems, I thought I'd share the latest. Sunday I added a few tablespoons of corn sugar to boiled water and chilled it and added it to my stout which was stuck at 1.030 (even after adding 05 yeast) and I checked it today and it's down to 1.023. That's not 1.018 but it's better. I have it at 70 and will keg this weekend but I know it wasn't the extra yeast that did this but the sugar so mashani's suggestion is worth it for anyone who wants to try this.
However, it still tastes the same so I'm not sure much of this matters except to OCD people like me!
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Re: Wyeast 1084 attenuation

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[quote="Beer-lord"]I'm sorry to keep semi-jacking this thread since I used 001 but since I did brew a stout and mashed high and am having similar problems, I thought I'd share the latest. Sunday I added a few tablespoons of corn sugar to boiled water and chilled it and added it to my stout which was stuck at 1.030 (even after adding 05 yeast) and I checked it today and it's down to 1.023. That's not 1.018 but it's better. I have it at 70 and will keg this weekend but I know it wasn't the extra yeast that did this but the sugar so mashani's suggestion is worth it for anyone who wants to try this.
However, it still tastes the same so I'm not sure much of this matters except to OCD people like

How did you ferment ? I followed my usually practice of starting below 65 and ramping up after it slows down. That slowdown is usually 4 days after pitching. I’m thinking that starting higher might be a good idea. I’m going to start at 68 next time. Fruity esters would a good thing in this beer so I’m not too worried about it shooting up int the 70s.


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