Brewing my first homebrew, an American Amber Ale...My OG was 1.047. I had it in primary for a week, then transferred to secondary where its been for 15 days...I tested my gravity yesterday and it was 1.014, is that normal? I tasted it from the hydrometer tube and it tasted rather sweet, also is that normal? I'm going to take a second reading tomorrow to see if its the same FG, then I should be ready to bottle, correct? Any help is greatly appreciated!
Making sure i'm doing this right...
- Thread starter jbone728
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It sounds perfect! At 1.014, it shouldn't be all that sweet, but remember that carbonation provides acidic bite (carbonic acid) to counteract the sweetness so it's hard to judge sweetness until it's completely carbed up.
You can bottle if the SG is still 1.014 after at least a couple of days after that first reading.
Perfect, thanks a lot! I thought it was too low, my FG that is, and I thought I did something wrong, since i didnt ferment it as cold as I probably should have...around room temp., 75-78 degrees fahrenheit. This has been the hardest part, I just want to taste it already! about 1-2 more weeks tho, I will let you guys know how it comes out!
Yes, that's too hot for fermentation. But the yeast will still work at that temperature. The reason you want to keep it cooler is for flavor. Anything above about 70 degrees (beer temperature, not ambient temperature) causes some off-flavors in the beer like fruity flavors or "hot" alcohol flavors. Some yeast strains do better than others with hot temperatures, so it is really yeast strain dependent.
What works really well is chilling the wort to 62-65 degrees before adding the yeast, and then keeping in a cool place (62-65 degrees or so) or sticking it in a water bath in a cooler with some ice blocks. An active fermentation produces heat, and I've seen the fermenting beer be 10 degrees warmer than the ambient temperature. Which means in a 72 degree room, the fermentation temperature can be 80+ degrees, so that's about 10 degrees too warm.
