FG question- Is a lower than expected FG bad?

Your beer should be a little drier (less sweet) since there are fewer residual sugars than you anticipated. This is not 'bad' per se, but could be related to your mash temps being lower than ideal or maybe you pitched more yeast than necessary (?).

 

I agree that mash temperature is probably a factor. Another factor could have been yeast selection. Did you use the strain that the recipe called for? I believe 1.068 OG down to 1.011 FG is roughly 83% apparent attenuation. 1.068 down to only 1.017 is about 74% apparent attenuation. Which yeast strain did you use? That will tell us what apparent attenuation range it typically has which could shed some light on your results.

 

Final gravity is hard to accurately predict, any program's number is an estimate.

 

Anticipated FG, from what? Beersmith, et al? Completely useless.

Ignore all "expected FG". Pay attention to ingredients, yeast attenuation, mash temp, etc, which will give you an idea, say 1.010 vs 1.025, but certainly cannot predict 1.010 vs 1.013. There's no real way to predict FG accurately.

 

What was your recipe / process? It depends oin teh fermentability character of the mash or extract you used too.

 

Is Tipple pale a base malt? Sounds like you did a quasi mini-mash, which is good with the Victory (a non-steepable grain), but needs to be at the right water / grain ratio (normally 1-2 qt/#), but may have not had enough time and enzymes to create proper conversion (1/2# of base malt for ~3# of mash is very low and may work if given the time).

With simple sugars like Candi syrup and low amounts of crystal I am not surprised by the low FG. Most calculators fail miserably at properly calculating FGs with simple sugars. You should calculate the attenuation against the malts that give a mixture of sugar and assume that all sugars' gravity contribution ferments out. In your case you get 32 gravity points of the total 340, so 308 points get ~75% attenuation (231 points ferment out), leaving 77 points, which is 15 points per gallon, or an expected FG of 1.015. If you got the higher attenuation number of 77% (or a little higher due to the amount of pale malt) it is not surprising at all...

 

Worry or dont worry, that is up to you. The beer will taste the same either way.

If you are thinking of dumping it, dont. Taste it. If it tastes good, drink it.

 

RDWHAHB

 

Yup. See how it tastes when it's ready. I have used the yeast you use once, and it, too finished a bit lower than expected. Think of it as a sign of good, healthy yeast.

 

What was your fermentation schedule like? Days / Degrees overview

 

Ehhhhh....(think Beavis and Butthead voices)...where's the pumpkin?

Also agree with hopfenunmaltz and nathanjohnson...FGs are specifically unpredictable and generally high with software.

 

If the beer tastes great, then who cares about FG?

That said, I would suggest you look at how you're measuring and regulating mash temp. My guess would be that your actual mash temp may have been lower than the 152 you were shooting for, which could have given you the lower FG.

 

No golden rule, lower mash temps get a more fermentable wort, thus lower FG and a drier beer.

You added 4# of pumpkin to your mini-mash? You needed a LOT more base malt then to make that work. A good rule of thumb is 1# of base malt per pound of other stuff to be converted. A high enzyme base malt you might be able to get away with 1/2# per #...