My beers at 1.020

[Tyson]

This is the first time I've brewed so beer with me.

I got a morgans blue mountain lager kit with dextrose and tin of morgans lager and yeast. I mixed it all in my carboy and while it was at 22°c I pitched the yeast that came with the kit then put lid on and sat it on a heat pad keeping it at a stable 22°c.

No bubbles came through the airlock however it did start fermenting there was a small head and there's brown scum stuff about 1inch above the liquid and fizzing/bubbles in the beer.

I then left it for 5 days the handbook advised only 5 days. All signs of fermenting have stopped I took a sample and it is reading 1.020 for the last 2 days I've given it a gentle swirl around and left it. Its still reading 1.020. My question is can I bottle this safely after getting same reading for 3 days with carb drops? Is 1.020 common with this kit ??? I'm so new to this my OG reading was not correct so I don't have a OG .

Thanks

 

[MHB]

Ok, first time at bat so we will do this in small steps.
First is always to test your hydrometer, just check it in water at about 20oC is it reading 1.000.
Second is to smell and taste the beer, wont be mature but should smell and taste good, if its acidic, vinegary, lactic or smells of sweaty socks its probably infected.

After that -
No-one can give you sensible answers to questions unless you give them the information needed. In brewing this includes Mass (weight) and Volume.
If you used a 1.8kg kit, a 1.5kg can of Morgan's lager malt and 1kg of dextrose and you made it up with water to 23L your OG would have been 1.058, if you FG was 1.020 you have made (58-20)/7.5 = 5.06% beer. In half as much water the OG would be twice as high.

The yeast can handle about 9% so you haven't drowned it in alcohol, when we look at how yeast preforms we can look at apparent attenuation (AA%) which is just the OG-FG/OG (or change over OG) as a percentage (the 1.000 part cant be used as its just saying density compared to water so we use points...) in this case (58-20)/58 = 0.655 or 65.5%.
This pretty low, at a minimum I would expect 70-75% AA% (give or take) from most yeast.

I would be a bit worried about bottling. Personally I think heat plates should be band, the yeast sinks to the bottom and gets cooked, not good for either yeast performance or the flavour of the beer.
I think your brew may have been a lot hotter than you think especially down the bottom. I would want to get some more yeast into the beer, get rid of the heat plate and just wrap the fermenter in an old towel or similar. Give it a few days and see if there is any change.
Mark

 

[Tyson]

Ok, first time at bat so we will do this in small steps.
First is always to test your hydrometer, just check it in water at about 20oC is it reading 1.000.
Second is to smell and taste the beer, wont be mature but should smell and taste good, if its acidic, vinegary, lactic or smells of sweaty socks its probably infected.

After that -
No-one can give you sensible answers to questions unless you give them the information needed. In brewing this includes Mass (weight) and Volume.
If you used a 1.8kg kit, a 1.5kg can of Morgan's lager malt and 1kg of dextrose and you made it up with water to 23L your OG would have been 1.058, if you FG was 1.020 you have made (58-20)/7.5 = 5.06% beer. In half as much water the OG would be twice as high.

The yeast can handle about 9% so you haven't drowned it in alcohol, when we look at how yeast preforms we can look at apparent attenuation (AA%) which is just the OG-FG/OG (or change over OG) as a percentage (the 1.000 part cant be used as its just saying density compared to water so we use points...) in this case (58-20)/58 = 0.655 or 65.5%.
This pretty low, at a minimum I would expect 70-75% AA% (give or take) from most yeast.

I would be a bit worried about bottling. Personally I think heat plates should be band, the yeast sinks to the bottom and gets cooked, not good for either yeast performance or the flavour of the beer.
I think your brew may have been a lot hotter than you think especially down the bottom. I would want to get some more yeast into the beer, get rid of the heat plate and just wrap the fermenter in an old towel or similar. Give it a few days and see if there is any change.
Mark

Thankyou yes I made 23L with 1kg Dex and 1.5kg malt. I'll take your advice and see how I go .

 

[pcmfisher]

If you did in fact have all those ingredients and an OG of 1.058 the pissy little 7g kit yeast would not have been enough and will probably have thrown in the towel early. 7g is arguably not enough for a standard 1.040 brew.

 

[Tyson]

If you did in fact have all those ingredients and an OG of 1.058 the pissy little 7g kit yeast would not have been enough and will probably have thrown in the towel early. 7g is arguably not enough for a standard 1.040 brew.

So you think it's done fermenting? Safe to bottle ?

 

[pcmfisher]

So you think it's done fermenting? Safe to bottle ?

As pointed out 1020 is a little too high. Give it another week and see what happens.

 

[hoppy2B]

Dextrose ferments out fully, so a brew like the one above with a kilo of dex should finish pretty dry.

If it doesn't drop in a week, do as per Mark's advice and add some fresh yeast like Nottingham Ale, and ditch the heat pad.

 

[sponge]

Or transfer to another FV and add more yeast. Should be enough residual sugars for new yeast to get to work.