Newbie gravity question.

Hello there!

I recently bought a set of the homebrewing kit (only the basics till I am comfortable with the whole process) and a can of Wilko's Sweet Newkie as a googling told me that it was one of the better kit beers.

My question is this, my hydrometer tells me that I should not bottle the beer as it still has too high a specific gravity (OG 1.042 FG 1.012 as opposed to the FG 1.008 as specified on the can) but it also says that once the reading is stable for 3 days then it is good to go.

This reading has been consistent for the last two days.

I dont want to jump the gun and end up with a load of bottle bombs, so any advice that you could give would be much appreciated!

Thanks,

Roachski

As long as the reading is stable, you're good to go. This means fermentation has stopped, so you're not risking bottle bombs. The small amount of priming sugar that's added won't create enough pressure to cause explosions, but if the beer continues fermenting in the bottle, that's where you run into issues.

Three stable hydrometer readings over a period of three to five days indicates fermentation is complete. Be sure to correct your hydrometer readings if the temperature of the wort is changing. How long has your brew been in the primary fermenter? Allowing two to three weeks of total time can improve the flavor of standard gravity beer.

You should only use the intended FG printed on beer kits as a guideline. To peg that number you will need to perfectly hit the original gravity AND have your yeast attenuate to exactly their estimated percentage. What's more important is that your FG, whatever it may be, is stable. I'd give it the three days to be sure.

The kit suggested 4-6 days in the primary fermenter, I wanted to leave it as long as possible as even though I am a novice I know the longer you leave these things the better.

So with this in mind it has been in the fermenter for 6 days.

The temperature of the wort has been pretty consistent, between 18-20 degrees.

Roachski said:

The kit suggested 4-6 days in the primary fermenter, I wanted to leave it as long as possible as even though I am a novice I know the longer you leave these things the better.

So with this in mind it has been in the fermenter for 6 days.

The temperature of the wort has been pretty consistent, between 18-20 degrees.

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Kit instructions over simplify the brewing process. It may seem great to have a beer ready in less than a week, but the best flavors of the beer will be lacking. I will never consider bottling until the beer has been in the primary for at least three weeks for a standard gravity recipe.

I will bear that in mind and leave it for two more weeks.

One other thing that concerns me though, I realise that I am not letting swarms of flies go into the FV or washing my socks in it, but I am still paranoid about it getting contaminated when I take the lid off to get a sample reading.

Should I let a good layer of Co2 build up before checking again or does it not matter?

I agree with Flars. My IPA is my only full time revolving beer, and it is by far the fastest attenuating. Still, we don't even check the gravity for two weeks and even then it stay in primary for dry hopping.

Roachski said:

I will bear that in mind and leave it for two more weeks.

One other thing that concerns me though, I realise that I am not letting swarms of flies go into the FV or washing my socks in it, but I am still paranoid about it getting contaminated when I take the lid off to get a sample reading.

Should I let a good layer of Co2 build up before checking again or does it not matter?

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You want to open it up as little as possible, but the chance of contamination or oxidation isn't as serious if you're using good sanitation procedures. Personally, I'll wait until at least a few days after the air lock has stopped to even think about taking a reading. Even then, fermentation could still be going. I think most of my beers stay in primary for at least two weeks, usually three.

I don't bother with checking FG until 3 to 4 weeks. By then average gravity beers are cleared up nicely and ready to package.

It's a matter of developing experience and reasonable expectations.

When I take my hydrometer readings I take them three days apart because the difference in 24 may be a fluke. And I usually wait two weeks for the first reading. Or sometimes I do it in 10 days if it *looks* like fermentation was done several days earlier. (If so I do the second reading three days later so I have never bottled in under two weeks.)

Fermentation *can* end in 6 days so you could have gotten stable readings two days in a row and you might be okay to bottle. But all my alarms go off that that is really really risky.

Also, Beer doesn't just need to ferment. It needs to age and condition. This was the entire purpose of the, mostly now discredited, secondary fermentation. If you were doing a secondary, I advise that you don't bother, it'd be okay to transfer now *but* you would then leave it to condition for a week or two. If you don't do a secondary you still need to leave it to condition so it might as well do it and stay in the primary fermentor where its safe rather than in a bunch of bottles.