Ready to bottle?

[Cummy]

This is only my second brew and I'm not sure if this is ready to bottle.

It is a pale ale FG was 1040

SG1015 measured two days apart.

It has been 13 days fermented in a fridge at 20 degrees using a dry safale yeast.

pale ale kit with 1 kg dried malt

Malt – 50%
Dextrose – 25%
Corn Syrup – 25%

Will this get any lower?

Cheers.

 

[Killer Brew]

OG sounds low. How many litres?

 

[Cummy]

23 litres. It is the first time I have measured OG as I didn't know about it the first time. What do you think the OG and FG should be?

 

[squirt in the turns]

You'll really need to provide more information to get a good answer. Your OG does seem low, though. Assuming you measured it with a hydrometer? Have you calibrated your hydrometer? It should read 1.000 in distilled water at 20°C. If not, adjust readings accordingly.

It has been 13 days fermented in a fridge at 20 degrees using a dry safale yeast.

Which Safale yeast? It may not make much of a difference to the answer you're seeking but different yeasts attenuate to greater or lesser degrees.

pale ale kit with 1 kg dried malt

Malt – 50%
Dextrose – 25%
Corn Syrup – 25%

Sorry, but your recipe doesn't make a lot of sense. Did you use 1 KG of dried malt extract plus the ingredients listed below that? Or did you use 1 KG of some kind of "brew booster" which is actually only 50% malt?

Also (happy to be corrected as I rarely use simple sugars in my brews and am a little hazy on the naming) aren't dextrose and corn syrup the same thing?

 

[paulyman]

Assuming you used the kit plus 1kg of LDME the OG of 1.040 sounds about right. A lot of my kit brews finished around the 1.015 mark so that sounds alright. I always like to check my FG three times just to make sure it really is stable. You've done good leaving it for 2 odd weeks, my first couple of brews were bottled as soon as I had a couple of stable readings, sometimes after just a week!

If the 3 readings are stable, I'd say go for it and bottle.

 

[Cummy]

I used the kit can + 1kg of a brew booster which as per the label consists of

Malt – 50%
Dextrose – 25%
Corn Syrup – 25%

I have checked the hydrometer and it reads 1000.

Ill read it again tomorrow morning and if its the same ill bottle it. I just wasn't sure if 1015 was reasonable or extremely high.

Thanks for the advice

 

[BrosysBrews]

Sounds high, might of stalled! I would give it a swirl and let it rise slowly to about 24 for a few days to make sure!

 

[squirt in the turns]

I'd tend to agree with BrosysBrews, with those ingredients it should have finished at 1.010 or probably even below. So it's high, but only a bit. However, if it was at 20°C then it shouldn't really have stalled. Try giving the hydrometer a spin in the tube before reading it as bubbles tend to stick and can lift it, giving a false reading. Although as you're consistently getting 1.015, this is a long shot. As Brosy suggests, raising the temp and giving it a gentle swirl (don't splash!) might rouse the yeast enough to get them to finish the job.

How are you controlling the temperature, e.g. a Fridgemate or STC-1000? Are you certain that you were accurately keeping it at 20°C? If it got too cold, you could've sent the yeast into dormancy. That said, the most popular Safale strains, US-05 and S-04 will keep going well below 20.

How fresh was the yeast and how much did you pitch? A standard 11.5g sachet? Did you re-hydrate? Was the yeast at any point in the process exposed to conditions that could affect its health, such as high temperatures?

How does it taste? If it's too sweet then it obviously has a little way to go (although at 1.015 I doubt it'll be noticeably sweet).

If rousing by swirling and warming slightly doesn't help, I'd say your options are:

• Bottle as-is. If you're using PET bottles then I'd say just go with this option - they're not so dangerous if they explode. Glass bottles? Well, if it drops another 5 or more points in the bottle, you're probably not looking at bottle-bombs, but it will be over-carbonated. Don't stake your life or anyone else's on this, though.
• Pitch more yeast (rehydrate) and wait a few more days.
• Invest in a kegging system and put it in a keg. Cornelius kegs can't explode as a pressure release valve in the lid will kick in before that happens. Kegging is a natural and inevitable progression/expense that the homebrewer must go through. Just let it happen.

 

[Killer Brew]

This advice was given to me in another similar thread and am currently doing the forced ferment test. Might be worth considering.

Google it for a better explanation but simply take a sample, roughly 1 cup and then add it to a sterile container. Shake the hell out of the sample as often as possible. Vent the pressure occasionally so it doesn't explode. Keep it in a warm spot, 20-30 degrees.

The idea is to get the yeast to ferment any left over fermentable sugar in the liquid. After a few days of constant shaking then recheck the gravity. The gravity you get will likely be the terminal gravity you can achieve with the current wort+yeast you have.
The elevated heat and the addition of air (dissolved into the wort by the constant shaking) will help the yeast attenuate to its max potential.

Once you know the potential of your wort+yeast you know what your fg shod be.