Beer Sg 1.114 ?!

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

leevalentine001

Active Member
Joined
12/11/12
Messages
36
Reaction score
1
Hi everyone, I'm new here as I'm sure you can tell by my posts count (which should be 1 once I've posted this). First of all, this forum is freaking awesome and I'm so glad I'm found it, so thanks to Dane for accepting my registration.

So I bought a kit a couple of years ago and made 2 batches of beer and 1 batch of cider with the help of a friend. He'd been brewing for 4 years at the time so really he did almost all of it. All went well with those.

I recently moved into a bigger apartment with a shed perfect to stash my brewing stuff in (and the fishing rods ;) ). So I got hold of a second fermenter and made a 'slap dash' cider and beer, using the absolute bare minimum ingredients (kit + 1kg brew enhancer on both). I bottled both yesterday (primed) and all is also well with those.

On a quick side note before I get on to the main point of my topic: I calculated my brews SG and FG's difference and multiplied by 0.13, is that about right? Eg. My beer was SG 1.037 FG 1.012 = 25 x 0.13 = 3.25% (Seems very low, but to be honest I actually took the SG the day after setting it up as I forgot at first). Cider was (also day after) SG 1.062 FG 1.014 = 48 x 0.13 = 6.25%. So I'm just wondering if that sounds about right to everyone else?

Back on topic: I put another brew together last night after bottling (and cleaning of course) and decided I would put a little more effort into this one. So I went with a Coopers recipe, adding 1.7kg Coopers ale (pale I think), 500g Coopers malt, 300g dextrose (I put 500g to oomph it up a bit), 250ml organic maple syrup (expensive stuff) and 1 tsp vanilla paste (I put 3, I know... probably overkill but I'm trying to get a beer the gf will drink).

Took the SG as soon as it was all mixed up to the 21 litre mark and got 1.1xx (can't remember exactly as there was a lot of foam and I figured it was wrong anyway). Checked again this morning and got 1.114. Airlock bubbled once every 2-3 minutes. I gave the fermenter a good slosh around and got the airlock bubbling every 5-10 seconds like normal, for a consistent 5 minutes or so before I was satisfied and went to work.

Does this sound like I've royally stuffed up or should is it likely to complete fermentation still? And does this mean it will come out around 13% abv?!

Look forward to your replies,

Lee
 
My guess is everything didn't dissolve properly and you got some of the concentrated syrup in your sample thus bumping up the numbers. Unless sugar magically multiplies when mixed with water you will be fine.
 
What was the temp when you pitched the yeast? Whats the temp of the FV now?
 
So I got hold of a second fermenter and made a 'slap dash' cider and beer, using the absolute bare minimum ingredients (kit + 1kg brew enhancer on both). I bottled both yesterday (primed) and all is also well with those.

On a quick side note before I get on to the main point of my topic: I calculated my brews SG and FG's difference and multiplied by 0.13, is that about right? Eg. My beer was SG 1.037 FG 1.012 = 25 x 0.13 = 3.25% (Seems very low, but to be honest I actually took the SG the day after setting it up as I forgot at first). Cider was (also day after) SG 1.062 FG 1.014 = 48 x 0.13 = 6.25%. So I'm just wondering if that sounds about right to everyone else?

Back on topic: I put another brew together last night after bottling (and cleaning of course) and decided I would put a little more effort into this one. So I went with a Coopers recipe, adding 1.7kg Coopers ale (pale I think), 500g Coopers malt, 300g dextrose (I put 500g to oomph it up a bit), 250ml organic maple syrup (expensive stuff) and 1 tsp vanilla paste (I put 3, I know... probably overkill but I'm trying to get a beer the gf will drink).

Took the SG as soon as it was all mixed up to the 21 litre mark and got 1.1xx (can't remember exactly as there was a lot of foam and I figured it was wrong anyway). Checked again this morning and got 1.114. Airlock bubbled once every 2-3 minutes. I gave the fermenter a good slosh around and got the airlock bubbling every 5-10 seconds like normal, for a consistent 5 minutes or so before I was satisfied and went to work.
Lee
You're calculating your abv's correctly, the method I use is OG (Original gravity, what you're calling SG above) minus FG, divided by 7.46. Don't forget to add about .4 or .5 if you're bottle priming. I'd say your first brew is reading really low 'coz you've taken it after its first day, when the yeast will have done a fair bit of work. Too late to make a call on what your true ABV will be on that beer, other than guesstimating given your ingredients? What volume was your brew, 23 litres? If so, my guess is you'd be looking at around 4.5%. The cider's 6.25% sounds right, i've heard they come out pretty strong.

Onto the current brew, that OG sounds off the chart given your recipe, I mixed up a Coopers Draught yesterday with 1.7kg can, 700gm dextrose, 500gm maltodextrin and 300gm golden syrup and with a 21 litre wort got an OG of 1.046. Did you remember to spin the hydrometer once you put it into the sample?

EDIT: Have you used the "Kit & Extract Beer Designer" spreadsheet before? Putting your ingredients into there for your current 21 litre brew, it should have an OG of 1045 (using Coopers Australian Pale Ale as the kit), with an FG of 1008, making it 4.9% before bottling, 5.3% after bottle conditioning.
 
I only have one of those stick on thermometers which seem to take a huge amount of time to get an accurate reading. As I didn't want to expose it to air for too long, I'm not sure what the temp was when the yeast was pitched. I put in 1.7 litres of boiling water (as much as my kettle holds), put in the malt first and mixed it in, then the can, then the rest of the ingredients and gave it a stir. When I left this morning for work it was 22-24 celcius (have it well wrapped up to keep it warm over night as it's outdoors and I don't have a heater yet).

I had a feeling it might not have dissolved properly as it did seems very thick still. I probably should have added more boiling water but I didn't want to leave it exposed to air while I waited for the kettle.

If it is just not dissolved properly, which is very likely, will it still ferment properly? Is there anything in particular I can do to help it dissolve or to get a proper gravity reading?

Thanks for the fast replies by the way!
 
You're calculating your abv's correctly, the method I use is OG (Original gravity, what you're calling SG above) minus FG, divided by 7.46. Don't forget to add about .4 or .5 if you're bottle priming. I'd say your first brew is reading really low 'coz you've taken it after its first day, when the yeast will have done a fair bit of work. Too late to make a call on what your true ABV will be on that beer, other than guesstimating given your ingredients? What volume was your brew, 23 litres? If so, my guess is you'd be looking at around 4.5%. The cider's 6.25% sounds right, i've heard they come out pretty strong.

Onto the current brew, that OG sounds off the chart given your recipe, I mixed up a Coopers Draught yesterday with 1.7kg can, 700gm dextrose, 500gm maltodextrin and 300gm golden syrup and with a 21 litre wort got an OG of 1.046. Did you remember to spin the hydrometer once you put it into the sample?

Thanks for that confirmation. Yes it was 23 litres so hopefully it is more like 4.5%, that sounds much better! Also thanks for the correction on my terminology, I'll remember OG from now on. I did spin the hydrometer. I more or less douched the test tube to get as much air out as possible but I think as the guys above mentioned, it's most likely due to not dissolving properly and being way too thick.
 
I only have one of those stick on thermometers which seem to take a huge amount of time to get an accurate reading. As I didn't want to expose it to air for too long, I'm not sure what the temp was when the yeast was pitched. I put in 1.7 litres of boiling water (as much as my kettle holds), put in the malt first and mixed it in, then the can, then the rest of the ingredients and gave it a stir. When I left this morning for work it was 22-24 celcius (have it well wrapped up to keep it warm over night as it's outdoors and I don't have a heater yet).

I had a feeling it might not have dissolved properly as it did seems very thick still. I probably should have added more boiling water but I didn't want to leave it exposed to air while I waited for the kettle.

If it is just not dissolved properly, which is very likely, will it still ferment properly? Is there anything in particular I can do to help it dissolve or to get a proper gravity reading?

Thanks for the fast replies by the way!

22-24 is on the high side the end results would be much better if you can keep it down closer to 18. at this time of year you will not need a heater, infact you would be better off looking at ways of keeping it cool over the coming summer. it will still be beer though so good luck with the new obsession.
 
I only have one of those stick on thermometers which seem to take a huge amount of time to get an accurate reading. As I didn't want to expose it to air for too long, I'm not sure what the temp was when the yeast was pitched. I put in 1.7 litres of boiling water (as much as my kettle holds), put in the malt first and mixed it in, then the can, then the rest of the ingredients and gave it a stir. When I left this morning for work it was 22-24 celcius (have it well wrapped up to keep it warm over night as it's outdoors and I don't have a heater yet).
The stick on thermometers don't take long at all to display the correct temp, it's only a matter of seconds. It's important (not critical, but important) to pitch your yeast at the right temperature, so next time if you're doing say a 23 litre brew, after putting your boiling water in and thoroughly mixing your ingredients, fill it with cold tap water to around 20 litres, wait a minute and check your temperature. If it's say 26, add another 2 litres to take it to 22, wait another minute and check your temp again. If it's dropped too low you can add more boiling water to bring it up...if for some reason it's still way above 27 then you need to think about using ice water to cool it off. But i've found that Melbourne tap water will generally bring the temp down to within that 21-27 range you want for pitching yeast.

In terms of stuff being too thick, make sure you add your dried malt first, pour boiled hot water from the kettle on it, then pick your fermenter up and give it a bloody good swirl for a few minutes, it works much better than stirring to avoid clumps 'coz the DME is so fine. It'll take a LOT of swirling but you can see when its done. Once completely mixed then add your liquid malts and whatever else you're chucking in there before stirring vigorously again.

I might be teaching you to suck eggs here...apologies if so...but someone might be reading this one day who didn't know!
 
A similar beginner's mistake that I've been guilty of in the past when doing kit beers is mixing the extract & sugars with hot water - making sure it's properly mixed in - then adding a load of cold water, stirring properly to mix it all up, then noticing that I'm a bit short of my target volume, so adding a bit more cold water and then taking the OG. I had forgotten to mix/stir after adding the last bit of cold water, so while it looked ok there was in fact a layer of almost-fresh water with a very low gravity sitting at the top of the fermentor, which gave a false low reading. I did and re-did my sums and was getting a theoretical OG of 1040 or something, but was only getting 1030-odd when measuring. Felt a proper muppet when I realised what I'd done :rolleyes:

Also, what I should have been doing was aiming for a target OG, rather than a target volume, so two lessons learned.
 
Thanks for all the tips! Especially about the temperature for yeast pitching / brewing. I actually thought it needed to be around 22 celcius consistently while brewing. Is 18 celcius better for most basic beer kits? And can it go much lower / higher than that? And I assume the temperature is mostly important for the end flavour more so than the actual fermentation process?

And thanks Juzdu, dumbing it down is actually a good thing cause I have a habit of trying to skip through the basic stuff and get into high end stuff. I really wanna nail the basic stuff and make a beer that my mates will actually enjoy the taste of (and still get pissed :p). The ones I've made in the past were not very tasty at all.

WillH - To be honest, I only stir the mix while it's hot, I have never stirred it after adding the cold water. So you might as well call me King Muppet :p I'll make sure to read over these posts to refresh my memory on Sunday when I bottle and do a new brew.

Speaking of being a muppet, when I bottled on Sunday I used that $5 coopers santiser. I let each bottle / piece of equipment soak for about 20 - 30 minutes before rinsing then bottling the brew. What I didn't do was read the instructions properly - it said to let everything soak overnight! Hopefully it doesn't make the beer too rancid. I'll have a look through the forums, but can any of you recommend a good sanitiser that works quickly and is easy to use? Preferably inexpensive too, as my primary goal is to save a bit of money by home brewing :p It would also be preferable if it's obtainable from a supermarket / department store as I don't have an easy way to get to the closest brewing shop.

Cheers,
Lee
 
Speaking of being a muppet, when I bottled on Sunday I used that $5 coopers santiser. I let each bottle / piece of equipment soak for about 20 - 30 minutes before rinsing then bottling the brew. What I didn't do was read the instructions properly - it said to let everything soak overnight! Hopefully it doesn't make the beer too rancid. I'll have a look through the forums, but can any of you recommend a good sanitiser that works quickly and is easy to use? Preferably inexpensive too, as my primary goal is to save a bit of money by home brewing :p It would also be preferable if it's obtainable from a supermarket / department store as I don't have an easy way to get to the closest brewing shop.
Lee, for bottling i've been using the Morgans No Rinse Sanitise (linky). Make up a litre of water with 30ml of that sanitiser, pour it into the first bottle via a funnel, give it a good shake right way up and upside down, then pour it via the funnel into the next bottle and repeat. After filling/shaking the last bottle, i pour it back into my jug, and use it to sanitise my little bottler. Then I chuck all my crown seals in the sanitiser and pull one out as i cap each bottle.

Oh, and just before I fill each bottle I tip it upside down one last time to drain any remaining sanitiser out...might be overkill but it's habit now. I clean my bottles after each use, or at least the same night, so just sanitising on bottling day is all they seem to need.
 
Lee, for bottling i've been using the Morgans No Rinse Sanitise (linky). Make up a litre of water with 30ml of that sanitiser, pour it into the first bottle via a funnel, give it a good shake right way up and upside down, then pour it via the funnel into the next bottle and repeat. After filling/shaking the last bottle, i pour it back into my jug, and use it to sanitise my little bottler. Then I chuck all my crown seals in the sanitiser and pull one out as i cap each bottle.

Oh, and just before I fill each bottle I tip it upside down one last time to drain any remaining sanitiser out...might be overkill but it's habit now. I clean my bottles after each use, or at least the same night, so just sanitising on bottling day is all they seem to need.

Excellent, thanks for the link. I didn't even think to buy brewing supplies online, that's a much better idea xD. I find sanitising to be the most daunting part of brewing. I'm paranoid that even a minute after the sanitiser leaves the bottle it might get infectious material in it <_< Do you use it to sanitise your fermenter, spoon etc too?
 
Back
Top