Gravity reading seems off

I just took a hydrometer reading right before i transferred to my secondary and it seems off. The first one was at 1.040 and now its at 1.008 it has been fermenting since 29 April and today is May 8th, my temp is 68 degrees and the kit is an Irish red ale. Is there something wrong?

The first reading was your starting gravity (SG) its your wort full of sugar. The disolved sugar causes the wort to be more dense, and the specific gravity is the measurement of this, as the yeast eat the sugar and piss alcohol and fart co2 the disolved sugar dwindles, that's why your gravity changed.

Not to be overly picky, but SG is typically specific gravity, while OG and FG are original and final gravity, respectively.

On Topic:
Those numbers seem plausible. What did the kit say they should be? If there is significant disparity, ensure you are accounting for the temperature difference between your temps and what your hydrometer is calibrated for. I don't see anything that has me thinking red flag right now.

Good attenuation!!

djfriesen said:

Not to be overly picky, but SG is typically specific gravity, while OG and FG are original and final gravity, respectively.

Click to expand...

Too picky lmao

KuntzBrewing said:

Too picky lmao

Click to expand...

Not too picky, just clarifying so the proper terms are used. Using the wrong terms can lead to misinformation as the terms mean something different to the posters. You wouldn't want your pharmacist to mistake mg for ml in your prescription even though in many cases either would be OK as they would be the same for some medicine. It's just that when they aren't the same and you take 2 ml instead of 2 mg and the density is sufficiently different that you overdose.

OK so this was very first batch, it is an Irish red ale from northern brewer. The first reading i took when the Wert was transferred to my carboy after my boil, it was 1.044. Then after my airlock stopped bubbling for three days i transferred to my secondary carboy and took another reading and it was 1.008. sorry for any confusion, and back to my question should my reading be this low?

Use one of the many online gravity to alcohol converters. Like this one.

http://pint.com.au/calculators/alcohol/

OG = 1.044
FG = 1.008

Alcohol by volume = 4.65%

You can check the calibration of your hydrometer by putting it in water that is at the temperature printed on the hydrometer. It should read 1.000

cfonnes said:

Use one of the many online gravity to alcohol converters. Like this one.

http://pint.com.au/calculators/alcohol/

OG = 1.044
FG = 1.008

Alcohol by volume = 4.65%

You can check the calibration of your hydrometer by putting it in water that is at the temperature printed on the hydrometer. It should read 1.000

Click to expand...

*Distilled water

or if you use the same hydrometer for BOTH readings it won't matter if it is a few points off because you are simply measuring the delta and multiplying by 1.3...

To answer the question "is my beer ok?" Yes its fine, it did exactly what it was supposed to do