First time ginger beer

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Brewer_dan

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Hey all,

First time brewer here so sorry for the rookieness. I put down a ginger beer about 11 days ago and i bottled tonight. I measured the FG and the hydrometer sank to the bottom. I dont know what this means i figured it must be non-alcoholic but just want some clarification as i was chasing an alcoholic ginger beer.
The ingredients i used was Coopers ginget beer kit, 1kg raw sugar, 500g of honey and filled to 23 litres of water. And if i did stuff up just want to know where i went wrong.

Cheers,

Dan
 
Brewer_dan said:
I dont know what this means i figured it must be non-alcoholic

It means you should have put more liquid in the tube so you can take a reading.
Alcohol has a lower SG than water BTW. You would have made alcohol for sure.
 
Yeah i just used the kit yeast. Ill try and fill the tube abit more. I only filled it to half way and see if it floats then. If not i dont what else it could be.
 
If it was non alcoholic it would have floated even higher. I usually put less in the tube when checking og than when checking sg post fermentation to save a few mls of precious beer.

Remember to give the hydrometer a stir to shake off any stuck bubbles and read from the top of the meniscus (curve from the surface tension)
 
1.020 is very high for a ginger beer to finish and I wouldn't have bottled it yet. Bottling too early can be very dangerous because excess carbon dioxide will be produced which could cause the bottles to explode.

Did you bottle in glass or plastic bottles?
 
I do a morgans kit and a kilo of dex sg 1.024 /fg about 1.002-4
a bit over 3% bottled
 
I have done around 6 gingers so far and I do 1kg raw and .5 dex sugar all have finished between 1.010 and 1.002 depending on the generation of yeast and what not the 3rd time over yeast went nutty!
 
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