Og Readings

[Gnarkill]

Hi Gurus,

I'm new here and this is my first post. I bottled my first brew last Monday and then stuck a Ginger Beer in to ferment yesterday. My question is, is there a nominal range to expect for the OG reading? I ask this because my first brew was 1025, a Coopers Ale (FG was 1000), and my Ginger Beer was 1020. These seem fairly low compared to some of the topics I have already browsed through on this site, talking about readings of 1040 and above.

Do I need to look at adding some more fermentables to the batch?

Cheers guys,

Keiran.

 

[Franko]

Keiran,
firstly welcome to the forum.

I do a few coopers kits here and most usually I get a OG of around 1040-1042. and FG of around 1010-1000
what are you adding to your kit and what volume are you making them to

Franko

 

[Gnarkill]

G'Day Franko,

Basically I just followed the instructions, so it was the Tin of Extract, 1kg of Brewing Sugar mixed together in hot water, then added cold water to make a total of 20L. Checked the temp, then added some more cold water to bring the temp down to about 21C, for a total of 23L.

Maybe I don't have the most reliable hydrometer, but I got similar readings with the two that I have.

Keiran.

 

[Tony]

also...... put your hydrometer in clean water and see what it reads.

It should sit on 1.000 in water.

Are you stiring up your brew before you take the reading? 1.020 is only like 2 or 3% beer.

cheers

 

[Gnarkill]

Yeah both hydrometers read 1000 in water.

I stirred the Coopers Ale prior to pitching the yeast, but didn't stir the Ginger Beer to see if it made any difference.

 

[Gnarkill]

Well my Ginger Beer has been fermenting away for a week now and I thought I'd check it. So far I have a hydrometer reading of 1000, only down 20 from a rather lower OG of 1020. Although it's only about 3% at the moment, I'll try to have some faith that something more will happen. I'm still not sure why the OG was so low, but at the moment, it has a pretty good bite to it.

 

[lucas]

I think that's about right for the coopers ginger beer. it's only supposed to come out to 3%, and it starts lower than normal brews because you're putting less stuff in the fermenter (980g of ginger beer extract Vs 1.7kg of regular beer extract). if you want it stronger, try two cans or add more sugar. I picked up some $3 cans a while back that i was considering throwing in all together with no sugar, but now i think ill do two cans and a kilo of rock sugar from the asian supermarket and save the other can for another day. I found if you make up the coopers can exactly as the directions say you end up with something that tastes very much like kirks ginger beer softdrink; the ladies love it!