A Few Days Before Bottling

... i need to check the FG, to see if it has fermented completely. I have used US-56 (a California Dry Ale Yeast), due to its great attenuation properties. In the past, I have had trouble fermenting out higher gravity beers. They would usually end up in the high 20s or so, which is a bit too wet.

To make a long story short, in hindsight, I had a little trouble with the mash. In the beginning of the mash, it seemed my temperature was a little too low (149F). So, I stirred and stirred, and finally the temperature probe said 152F. Ok, this is perfect.

I have a feeling there might have been some temperature gradients there that I was not aware of. The reason I say this is because my final gravity is at 1.008. This is a bit low for this OG of a beer (1.064). Well, I have had my before bottle tasting, and yes, it is a little dry.

This is ok, the young beer tastes really good, and I am happy with it. I will dry hop for a couple days, to get some hop aroma into it (the hops taste nice... and I will talk about this later).

For such a high alcohol beer (7.3%), I do not taste the alcohol. This is in part most likely due to the cold fermenting conditions I put it under. In the beginning, and for the majority of this beers fermenting life, it was sitting below 62F. This allowed the nasty types of alcohol from being excreted by the yeast.