G'Day everyone. I'm a long time lurker, first time poster with a question you've all no doubt heard before, but one I'd like some help with if possible.
I usually brew kit based Lagers, and have had some pretty reasonable results with Saflager dried yeast. Coming from Newcastle and having grown up drinking black beer, I decided to change tack and have a go at brewing a black in the 'Hunter Old' style. The bloke at my local homebrew shop talked me into a can of Morgan's 'Old', 1.5kg of NZ 'Dark' Liquid Malt, some CL80 hops (never used CL80s before) and Safale yeast.
My question is about the final gravity and when to bottle. I've heard that darker brews have higher gravities, but mine began at 1039, so I wasn't expecting it to be much different to my Lagers. I've brewed it a little colder than the kit suggested, but it has been pretty steady at 19/20 degrees for 8 days now. The gravity hasn't dropped in 3 days now below 1011. Obviously I don't want exploding bottles. The airlock is still bubbling but only about once every 2 minutes. Should I bottle now or wait longer (planning to use Coopers lollies as bottling sugar)?
Thanks for any help you might offer. This is a great board and has helped me a lot in the past.
Gough. :chug:
I usually brew kit based Lagers, and have had some pretty reasonable results with Saflager dried yeast. Coming from Newcastle and having grown up drinking black beer, I decided to change tack and have a go at brewing a black in the 'Hunter Old' style. The bloke at my local homebrew shop talked me into a can of Morgan's 'Old', 1.5kg of NZ 'Dark' Liquid Malt, some CL80 hops (never used CL80s before) and Safale yeast.
My question is about the final gravity and when to bottle. I've heard that darker brews have higher gravities, but mine began at 1039, so I wasn't expecting it to be much different to my Lagers. I've brewed it a little colder than the kit suggested, but it has been pretty steady at 19/20 degrees for 8 days now. The gravity hasn't dropped in 3 days now below 1011. Obviously I don't want exploding bottles. The airlock is still bubbling but only about once every 2 minutes. Should I bottle now or wait longer (planning to use Coopers lollies as bottling sugar)?
Thanks for any help you might offer. This is a great board and has helped me a lot in the past.
Gough. :chug: