Last night I brewed up a beautiful split batch of a Smoked Porter and a Dark Mild that I was just thrilled about. I hit all of my targets, the recipe was the result of weeks of careful adjustments, the water treatments were spot-on, my starter was huge and healthy... I went to bed with the buckets both sitting at 72ish (tap is already too warm to cool much below 70, and it was late) with plans to pitch first thing in the morning. The 1.040OG Mild was going to get WY1968 and the 1.050OG Porter a packet of US05. Woke up as planned at 5am for a run, and thought it would be fun to pitch first and see if there was any activity when I got back. So, I went into the garage and groggily did the deed. Then, as I was rinsing out the funnel and re-affixing the air locks I realized that in my pre-run, pre-coffee haze I had switched the buckets for the yeasts! Now I'm afraid my Porter is going to be a chewey mess (I mashed at 156) and my Mild is going to just taste watered down (neutral/ dry yeast in a small beer, NO!) Any comforting words would be greatly appreciated
Jimmy, Every batch is a ‘new adventure’. Keep the faith. You really won’t know how the beers will turn out until they are done. A ‘chewy’ Porter sounds tasty to me! I have had a number of low attenuating English cask ales in London. While they were not my ‘favorites’ I did enjoy drinking them none the less. I have an English Bitter Ale that I brewed with Wyeast 1469 that finished at 1.006 (lower than I would have preferred). It is still carbonating so I haven’t really tried it yet but I drank the hydrometer sample and it was tasty. I have ‘hopes’ for this beer despite the low FG. Cheers! Jack
"So, I went into the garage and groggily did the deed." But did you add the yeast? : ) Seriously... I think the porter will be good and the Mild might need to be blended. D'oh!
Thanks guys. I'm kind of thinking the Mild will become a play ground for secondary additions if it finished too dry. Maybe a gal each of Oaked, Chili, Chocloate, and???
“Mild might need to be blended …” That is an idea. Maybe you could let your mild ferment out and then sample it. It you deem it ‘not up to snuff’ you could brew another batch which you purposefully brew to be very non-attenuating and blend the two beers!?! Cheers!
Crazy ideas... you can still add the porter yeast to the porter to get your attenuation down. If you don't want to buy more, try to collect some with a sanitized spoon from the krausen of the mild batch and add to the porter. Do this carefully or both batches could become infected! As for the Mild, you can try to rack off the porter yeast (maybe a day after high krausen) and cold crash early to stop the activity. If you're worried this might make things worse, split each batch and try them different ways. Maybe this works? Maybe it doesn't. A good brewer knows how to improvise when things go wrong. Prost!
Good stuff here. The early cold crash is an especially good idea. I wonder though, if I do stop fermentation early, what is to keep it from kicking up again down the line and creating bottle bombs? Also, can anybody offer up any experience with US05 and such a high mash temp? I've only used it with beers that were highly fermentable and it achieved 83-85% attenuation. Does it seem to eat through everything, or will it choke on the dextrins for a higher FG (relatively speaking, of course)?
I was thinking the same thing, but wondering if he legged. It would be easier to cold crash a keg and not worry about continued fermentation if you had it at 40F in a giant metal can that can withstand high pressure...
Excatly what I was sying in my last post. I don't keg, so the bottle bomb-threat is probably too high.
If it's any consolation, I just brewed a dark mild that tasted like roasty coffee water untill it primed. Now it's still a touch too much coffee/roast than I was aiming for, but I get a lot of compliments from people on it. I guess what I am saying is, be patient. It might turn out to be great.
