Why does my beer have no alcohol?

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I'm working on my 3rd batch now, and while my first two (red ale and IPA) came out with pretty good color and smell, they had a watery taste and an ABV reading about 1.5%. I'm new so I didn't expect it to be perfect, but the red ale was a recipe that came with my kit, so I have no idea how that went wrong. Sorry I don't have the ingredients here to post yet, but any help would be great.
 
Recipe is not as important as the equipment and method you are using to measure ABV%.

I'm guessing you have taken the final reading as how much alcohol there is.

What you need to do is take a reading after the boil, before you add yeast.
Then after fermentation take a reading.
Subtract second reading from first reading and convert to alcohol by volume %.
 
Did you look at your hydrometer at the end of fermentation and see it at the 1.5% line on the ABV scale? If so, yer doin' it wrong. That's a "potential" alcohol scale and really only works for wines and meads that can ferment down to 1.000. You use it at the start to see how much alcohol you will have if it ferments out completely. As said above you need to take a hydrometer reading before fermentation and one after, subtract the two and you can figure your ABV from that.
 
To properly determine alcohol content you must have two hydrometer readings. One prior to fermentation and one after fermentation.

What you have done is just simple read the Alcohol scale which means little post fermentation. that scale is a potential alcohol scale based on available sugars in the solution but has no correlation to yeast actual performance or fermentability of the sugars in the wort.

At this point, trust the kit.
 
Did you look at your hydrometer at the end of fermentation and see it at the 1.5% line on the ABV scale? If so, yer doin' it wrong. That's a "potential" alcohol scale and really only works for wines and meads that can ferment down to 1.000. You use it at the start to see how much alcohol you will have if it ferments out completely. As said above you need to take a hydrometer reading before fermentation and one after, subtract the two and you can figure your ABV from that.


Why can't you subtract the difference?
 
Why can't you subtract the difference?

You can if you take the reading at the start and the finish. If you just look at the end, you have nothing to subtract from. But, even if you do that, that scale isn't as accurate as using your SG readings. At least on my hydrometer it isn't.
 
You can if you take the reading at the start and the finish. If you just look at the end, you have nothing to subtract from. But, even if you do that, that scale isn't as accurate as using your SG readings. At least on my hydrometer it isn't.

But you would have the same problem if you didn't take a reading at the start using the SG scale. As far as accuracy, if I get to within .5 of the ABV I am happy. But for me it is just for casual consumption not a product I need to duplicate every time. I use the alcohol scale all the time now, gives me what I need to know without conversions. Oh I don't do specific recipies either, just create a new brew just about every time so I am setting the SG/FG. I am very basic in my brewing.

I use the SG scale for my aquarium.....but different hydrometer! :D
 
But you would have the same problem if you didn't take a reading at the start using the SG scale. As far as accuracy, if I get to within .5 of the ABV I am happy. But for me it is just for casual consumption not a product I need to duplicate every time. I use the alcohol scale all the time now, gives me what I need to know without conversions.

I use the SG scale for my aquarium.....but different hydrometer! :D

Yeah, but I'm taking SG readings anyway at the start and finish.
 
Thanks all for the responses, and yes I was only taking readings after fermentation. I guess I thought it would still give me the same result. Although even if I was reading it off, my first batch still had a watery taste to it. But I'm going to be bottling my IPA this week so we'll se how that turns out.
 
Without an OG reading you could estimate the ABV using the FG and the attenuation of the yeast, no?

I made a Mirror Pond Pale ale the was pretty watery out of the fermenter but filled out nicely with time.
 
That assumes 100% fermentability.

Since almost nothing is 100% fermentable could you not use the average percentage of fermentability?

For example, if LME was used and it was 70% fermentable and the yeast had 75% attenuation and the FG was 1.010 wouldn't those numbers give you a reasonable guess?
 
Since almost nothing is 100% fermentable could you not use the average percentage of fermentability?

For example, if LME was used and it was 70% fermentable and the yeast had 75% attenuation and the FG was 1.010 wouldn't those numbers give you a reasonable guess?

Yeah. I misread the post and deleted the statement.
 
My first batch had the instructions in liters and not gallons, so i got confused and ended up with six gallons of beer instead of five... I added too much water. Did you make 5 gallons?
 
I am just a noob so forgive me for stating the obvious. But are you sure that your beer fermented? I mean it's possible that the yeast was bad or somehow the yeast died prior to fermentation. How are you preparing your yeast? Did you see signs of active fermentation?
 
To the OP: if you post your recipes, someone here (such as myself) can run them through BeerTools or BeerSmith, and give you an idea of what your OG should have been and a close estimate of ABV should be.
 
There are a few reasons your brew may be watery and/or less alcoholic than it should be.


1) are you 100% sure you started with 5 gallons of brew in primary?

2) are you letting the wort cool sufficiently before pitching your yeast?

3) are you letting the brew ferment for ~ a month?

4) are you sure you have been adding all of the fermentables to your wort?
 
How long are you letting your beer bottle condition? My extract brews start out a little watery, but after 4-5 weeks they have much better mouth feel/body. It sucks waiting, but maybe it just needs more time.
 
A fun way to estimate (albeit completely unscientific) would be to get a sixer of a commerical beer similar in style and see how drunk you get. Then drink a sixer of your homebrew and compare inebriation levels :D
 
A fun way to estimate (albeit completely unscientific) would be to get a sixer of a commerical beer similar in style and see how drunk you get. Then drink a sixer of your homebrew and compare inebriation levels :D

Make sure you leave at least a day between taking "readings" otherwise you will be left with the conclusion of "Damn my beer is strong" :tank:
 
Also what kind of kit was it? an all malt extract or one that needed an extra kg of sugar? Once with one of those +kg sugar kits I nearly forgot the sugar and was wondering why the OG was 1.020, then I noticed the bag of sugar sitting next to the sample.
 
I must be a real stinkin' drunk because I've actually gotten to where I can tell the ABV of a beer (close, not exact) simply by comparing the buzz I have to how much I've consumed in "X" amount of time. LOL!!!
 
By reading the replies, doing some research and drinking a few I believe I know the problem. I never took an initial reading before adding the yeast and made the conversion to get an accurate reading. Over the past week I drank quite a bit of em, and after just a couple, I could tell there was alcohol in there lol.
 
Hi some one help me with my ABV % SG, and the FG
 

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