Racked to secondary and took a Specific Gravity reading.. (expert assistance needed)

It's about 70 degrees beer temp approximately.

I've tried to determine the specific gravity and the best I can make out is that it's on the 2.5% or 5 line(mark). I don't know if all specific gravity devices are the same.

Does the 2.5% indicate alcohol content? or is that 2.5% lighter than water?

Sorry, first timer using the readings.

Starting gravity for the Red Ale is 1.042-1.045.
Brewing Date: 8/08/08
Strawberries added to primary: 8/10/08
Racked to Secondary: 8/14/08

Final Gravity is supposed to fall between : 1.008 - 1.010
Alcohol by volume of kit : 4-5%

None of these take into consideration the strawberries and their sugars and other beer changeing properties.

On one note.. it has a nice color, does smell good and tastes good (albiet flat.. hahah)

I plan on letting it sit in secondary for another week or so and then bottleing it. It began releasing bubbles once I was done racking and airlocking so thats a good thing. Racking being done as to not disturb and introduce air.

How can I estimate, or even can I, estimate the alcohol content based on this information?

After looking at a video someone linked I determined my Gravity is 1.020 with a corrected value for temperture at 1.021.

I wonder how much further I have to go and how close I'll be to the FG of the Ale considering the rasberry sugars fermenting.

I don't think the strawberries really will add much in the way of fermentables- but how much did you add? (you may be able to estimate the amount of fermentables, but it's usually easier if you take the SG after you add them so you know how many points it added).

How to determine alcohol content is: (OG-FG) x 131

So, if your OG was 1.042 and the FG is 1.021 (which is way too high to rack to the clearing vessel, by the way- you should have waited until you got around 1.014 at the highest), the formula looks like this:

(1.042- 1.021) x 131=
.021 x 131 = 2.75% ABV

If this ferments down to the original expected FG, though, at 1.008-1.010, you'd be in the 4.2% range, not including any fermentables added by the strawberries.

Based on your timetable, I would guess that your fermentation hasn't finished, which means that any calculations will be skewed. The longer you let it sit, the better. After fermentation is finished, the yeast will clean up after themselves.

ABV= (OG- FG) * 131

EDIT: Damn, Yooper beat me to it!

As a general rule,

No. As an absolute rule, take a gravity reading before racking to secondary, as you took it off of a yeast cake that hadn't finished the job yet (probably stalled). If you'd taken it before, you'd have more options to try to wake it back up, like rousing the yeast etc. Just for next time.

Can I add another dry yeast packet to the secondary? To speed it along or do you guys think it will finish on it's own over time?

We don't taste much alcohol in it although you can smell/taste a hint of it.

After a bit of searching I saw a few posts where people repitched another packet of yeast.

I have a second packet of the same type of yeast and pitched that and resealed the airlock.

Initially for 2 days the fermentation was going like crazy and then stopped.. it was hard to tell what was going on because of the amount of rasberries in the top floating. We used a healthy amount of berries.

BADS197 said:

Can I add another dry yeast packet to the secondary? To speed it along or do you guys think it will finish on it's own over time?

We don't taste much alcohol in it although you can smell/taste a hint of it.

After a bit of searching I saw a few posts where people repitched another packet of yeast.

I have a second packet of the same type of yeast and pitched that and resealed the airlock.

Initially for 2 days the fermentation was going like crazy and then stopped.. it was hard to tell what was going on because of the amount of rasberries in the top floating. We used a healthy amount of berries.

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Well, I think it's best to stop messing around with it for the moment and wait and see. If you make the same beer again, wait until fermentation is done, and then add the berries in the secondary. Sometimes berries in primary lose much of their aroma, due to the outgassing of so much co2. Patience is a virtue in brewing- just try to wait it out.

well after a night of pitching the yeast there is nothing going on.