Cooper's IPA kit

KingPin461 · 09-21-2009, 03:50 PM

Hey guys, been trying to read and absorb as much as I can for weeks now and seems as if I have barely scratched the surface of this obsession.

I brewed my first kit last Tuesday and its been fermenting in the primary since.

Here is what I did, brought 5.5gal to a boil, added water salts, dumped the canned contents, added additional LME and 2/3oz of Cascade. I let it boil for 45mins (instructions said 30mins but I hear they are notorious for being wrong). Stopped the heat and added the remaining hops, cooled it down and took my sample. I kinda goofed on the SG as I completely forgot to adjust for temperature. It read 1.032 prior to pitching the rehydrated yeast.

Airlock activity has subsided, and I know you can't gauge fermentation with that, so I took a gravity reading yesterday and reading came out to 1.005.

I guess my question is, what FG am I shooting for? The instructions said to rack to secondary at 1.020 and wait another week. Then bottle at 1.010 or less. Im already at 1.005 and plan to keg instead of bottle. Its only been 6 days in the primary, so when can I rack to my keg? Thanks in advance fellas (sorry for keeping this so long)

mdwmonster · 09-21-2009, 07:57 PM

Wait two or three days and take another reading - if it is also 1.005 the beer is ready to be bottled or kegged. Since it has been fermenting for 6 days, and the reading is already that low, my guess would be that it is done, but the only way to know for sure it to compare readings.

KingPin461 · 09-21-2009, 08:49 PM

Thanks for the response, i will test again on Thursday and compare.