Greetings all,
Total noob (1st post), so I apologize if this topic has been covered. So me and my 2 buddies decided to start brewing together, we've never done it before. Went to the Local Brew Shop, grabbed a 5gal beginner kit and a Trew Brew Brown Alr recepie kit. I just finished reading how to brew so i used a combination of what I learned from Palmer and the True Brew direction sheet.
Brew day went off without a hitch. OG was 1.042 Had some active fermentation, nice creamy Kreusen and then it settled off after about 48 hours. Sat in the primary for 17 days @ 69-75 degrees then we bottled.
Mistake #1 was I didn't take a hydrometer reading before emptying the primary into the botteling bucket. FG was 1.025 when it was supposed to be around 1.012. The beer tasted sweet, yet almost watery at the same time, far from good tasting beer.
I did some research and started to blame the incomplete fermentation (if that is indeed what happened) on the Malto Dextrin the recepie kit contained. Then I realized had I taken a reading before botteling I could have swirled the primary to wake up some yeast, or even pitched more yeast, but we didn't. We went ahead and primed and bottled hoping something magical would happen in the bottle conditioning phase.
Any thoughts on what may have gone wrong, or what might happen in the bottles? "Is my beer ruined" ? Might I have good drinkable beer in 2 weeks, 1 month 6 months? Also, what is the best method for taking a sample from the primary to take a reading? I was thinking sanitized turkey baster? What should your beer taste like straight out of the primary?
Thanks all!
Total noob (1st post), so I apologize if this topic has been covered. So me and my 2 buddies decided to start brewing together, we've never done it before. Went to the Local Brew Shop, grabbed a 5gal beginner kit and a Trew Brew Brown Alr recepie kit. I just finished reading how to brew so i used a combination of what I learned from Palmer and the True Brew direction sheet.
Brew day went off without a hitch. OG was 1.042 Had some active fermentation, nice creamy Kreusen and then it settled off after about 48 hours. Sat in the primary for 17 days @ 69-75 degrees then we bottled.
Mistake #1 was I didn't take a hydrometer reading before emptying the primary into the botteling bucket. FG was 1.025 when it was supposed to be around 1.012. The beer tasted sweet, yet almost watery at the same time, far from good tasting beer.
I did some research and started to blame the incomplete fermentation (if that is indeed what happened) on the Malto Dextrin the recepie kit contained. Then I realized had I taken a reading before botteling I could have swirled the primary to wake up some yeast, or even pitched more yeast, but we didn't. We went ahead and primed and bottled hoping something magical would happen in the bottle conditioning phase.
Any thoughts on what may have gone wrong, or what might happen in the bottles? "Is my beer ruined" ? Might I have good drinkable beer in 2 weeks, 1 month 6 months? Also, what is the best method for taking a sample from the primary to take a reading? I was thinking sanitized turkey baster? What should your beer taste like straight out of the primary?
Thanks all!