Why is my brew never as strong as it says on the box?

I've just barrelled my 3rd brew, a donner and blitzed Xmas brew by milestone. This had some pretty in depth instructions with it unlike the other woodfordes kits I've made.
These said my starting gravity should be 1.040 at around 18-25 degrees, mine was 1.042???. My final gravity said it should be .009 but mine was 1.14. How come ?

Sorry for some reason my app won't show me more than one paragraph at a time so I can't see what I'm typing!. Re cap final gravity should have been 1.009 but mine was 1.014, despite mixing with a paddle on the 6th day of fermenting. My fermenting temp was 18 degrees all the way through.

Different efficiencies, Mash temps (If all grain, temps lower than 152 produce more fermentable sugars than temps over 152), yeast pitch rates, attenuation (stated vs actual), and fermentation temps.

These are jut some of the things that could cause differences.

This was a premium 2 tin kit that neede no extra sugar apart from the spray malt I added when I kegged it. So should I make the temp of the wort before pitching the yeast closer to the 18 degree mark than the 25 degrees the scale on the instructions states?

Extract beer sometimes finishes with a higher than desired FG. These threads discuss the 1.020 curse:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/fg-quite-high-324462/
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/fermentation-length-351457/

You can try warming it to 20-22 during the last 1/3 of fermentation. There will be some variability in numbers just based on extract quality and yeast health/type. Your attenuation was about 66%, so maybe a little more time and increasing the temps a bit to help it finish.

Hmm ok something to know for next time I guess. Thanks folks. If I do another gravity test after final fermentation at Xmas time when the beers ready to drink, will the carbonation in the beer give false results and if it makes any difference will i be cheating myself? lol.

For the future: DO NOT SWIRL YOUR BEER WITH YOUR PADDLE after fermentation has started or nears completion. You could be increasing the possibility of infection or oxidizing your beer

Did you prime the yeast with O2? 18C how do I convert this? (18X1.8)+32? Crap, I gotta find a calculator. I'm guessing 66F? And it would seem your kit said 18-25C and your were at the low end of this. Colder = lazy yeast. For a small beer like this higher temps may help it finish. And IMHO don't stir the beer anymore just adds O2.

Prime the yeast with O2? This is only my third brew, I was led to believe it was easy as long as you followed the instructions and didn't mess with the recipe but it seems I need to know a hell of a lot more about (attenuation rates?) yeast types , pitch temp when to make it warmer when to make it cooler ect. Ill prob have to go to night class!

It's not so bad. When you boil wort it takes all the O2 out of it, so when it's in the carboy after it's cooled, you can shake the crap out of it, blow bubbles with a fish tank thing(?) or do what I do and add pure O2, I use welding gas. This gives the yeast the O2 in the first 24 hrs they need. Most people shake the crap out of it. Also, sometimes the yeast can be old/dead and under pitching will slow fermentation. So if you want a great fermentation, make a starter then shake the crap out of it. After you do it once it will be easy.

Carboy? Sorry I'm such a beginner its not funny. Is that the pressure barrel I'm assuming? Shaking the fermentation bucket would prob result in all my ale going up the walls lol. When you say make a starter do you mean out some of the dried yeast in water and shake it in a container before adding it to the wort?. Then would I sprinkle the rest of the yeast on the top as per instructions? Sorry for the stupid questions like I said I'm a total virgin to this

How about this, check to make sure the yeast is fresh and when in doubt pitch a second package. To add air/o2, you can whisk or stir the wort as best you can just after you pitch the yeast, in the fermentation bucket. I don't know what the pressure barrel is (slang there may be different here).

A carboy is a big, fat bottle that is often used for fermenting beers, wines and anything else you care to.

When you are pouring the wort from your Brew Kettle into your bucket try to get as much splashing as possible to aerate/oxygenate the wort. Then/or go to town on it with a long handled spoon (plastic is best) or a whisk and try to whip as much foam as possible/introduce as much air as you can so that the yeast have plenty O2 to help them get ready for feasting on sugars, farting CO2 and pi$$ing alcohol.

Getting the wort down near the lower end of your yeast's optimum temperature range to start fermentation and for the first few days, then, after a week or so, allowing the temp of your fermenter to rise a few degrees for the last week of primary is known to generally give good results.

Your example above of yeast use is sounding like a partial re-hydration

Pitching the entire contents of the packet dry is OK. Re-hydrating the contents of the packet in warm water would be OK too.

A starter is basically something where you add your yeast to a small volume of wort/sugar and water solution/ DME and water, then it (the yeast) starts to multiply/reproduce meaning you have larger numbers of healthy yeast ready to go to work on your 5 gallon, or however big, batch of wort and they can do the task with the minimal amount of stress which leads to efficient attenuation, fewer off flavours and a better beer.

Pressure barrel is the container for putting the beer in for the final fermentation the one that's sealed tight with a valve at the top for adding co2 to if there's a vacuum unbalance and air gets sucked up the tap into the barrel when you try to pour a glass. That's what they called it on the kit instructions anyway. I think I could have mixed some more air in at the start. I think that could be part of my problem. Ah we'll live and learn!. Looks like my guests will have to drink more of it to feel any Xmas cheer this season lol. Still 3.89% isn't to bad for an ale I guess, although 4.5% would have been nice!

Brilliant that makes sense ogri thanks! Would there be a specific water/yeast/sugar ratio in should use?. & I assume brewers sugar is the best stuff for doing this ?

Heh, heh, I'm no expert on these matters so I did a quick search. Check out this thread

Seems like a ratio of 10:1:1 for water to sugar and one vial of liquid yeast. So that would be 10:1:1/2, water to sugar to (1/2 of) an 11.5 gram bag of safale dry yeast. 1 litre water to 100 grams DME to 5.75 grams dry yeast. The important thing is to try to get that wort somewhere in the 1.030 to 1.040 Gravity range so that the yeast aren't working hard on fermenting it, more getting the nutrients necessary for reproduction.

I've never used brewer's sugar myself so couldn't really say as to how effective it'd be. Should be OK for yeast propagation. Seems that most use DME.

The Mr. Malty site looks helpful for determining starter size for your batch depending on batch size, OG and such.
http://www.mrmalty.com/calc/calc.html

In the on-line "How to Brew", Palmer recommends re-hydrating dry yeast. He discusses starters for liquid yeast. His re-hydration method seems a little outdated - probably best to follow the yeast manufacturer's instructions. This on-line book is worthwhile reading, although some of it is outdated.

malky1841 said:

...These said my starting gravity should be 1.040 at around 18-25 degrees, mine was 1.042???...

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42 to 40 isn't that far off but if you want to hit the recipe OG you can always use a refractometer. It makes it easy to take fast samples during the boil. Of course adding a few minutes at the end to get the gravity up might mess with your late hop additions, but you'd have to make that judgment per recipe.

Cheers guys for all your help. Hopefully ill get it right next time round

A difference in OG of .002 is nothing. It could just be an error in reading, or a few ounces of water more in the wort. No worries.

As far as finishing, many beers don't actually hit the projected FG. That's fine, as long as it is below about 1.020, and no longer changing after at least three days. Than is when it can be packaged. A FG of 1.014 is perfectly fine.

Oh one other thing. I added 80g of spraymalt mixed with cooled boiled water as suggested and the instructions say to leave the barrel at room temp again between 18 degrees & 25 degrees ( quite a large margin I thought) then move to a cooler place for 4 weeks. But how long do I leave it at room temp for the secondary fermentation and carbonation to take effect?

This is for carbonation in your pressure barrel, right??

Haven't used one so really have no experience and advice regarding the pressure barrel but the process should be the same. Carbonation usually takes about three weeks @ 21 Deg Centigrade for an average gravity beer. Higher gravity beers can take a lot longer. Let it go for three weeks and then check a sample to see if it's carbonated to your preference and, if it is, then store it in a cooler place, or somewhere where it'll be close to serving temperature if you want to start drinking it nearly straight away. If you can resist temptation and chill the beer for another week you'll likely get rewarded with a nicely carbonated beer that retains it's head well and has a good level of carbonation right to the end of the glass.

Yea thats right its for the pressure barrel. Maybe I got a different kind of homebrew kit than most folk on here?. What do you do?, keep it in the fermenting bucket?. Wouldn't it go flat or contaminated?. I've heard loads of folk saying they dont transfer for secondary fermentation. I should really buy a book on the subject but I've no idea where to begin as yet.

Personally I bottle my homebrew. Three weeks, or thereabouts, in primary, rack to a bottling bucket whilst adding about 400ml of priming solution (sugar) then bottle and leave for about three weeks to carbonate at about 20-24 deg. C. Although I'm drinking a witbier right now(OG 1.042, FG 1.010) that was fully carbonated, or certainly seemed as though it was, after only 8 days.

The majority of people around here tend to just do primary and forget about transferring to secondary unless they are doing fruit additions, oak aging, bulk aging etc. etc. It's also common practice to dry hop in primary for the last week. If you cold crash your primary, for a couple of days after fermentation has wound down, you encourage the yeast to drop out of solution and can get a really clear beer as a result. And yes, I don't think too many of them are familiar with the style of secondary fermenter/pressure barrel you're using. A good number of them are kegging their brews, but that is still not quite the same as your set-up, by the sound of things.

It'd definitely be a good idea to have a read through some of the stuff in the link that bknifefight posted.

bknifefight said:

www.howtobrew.com

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Yea I read that and its completely different to the instructions on the beer pack I bought. It says to boil the malt extract and water but the beer kit say just to add it to the fermenting bucket and top up to the 5 gallon mark with 5 gallons of water making sure the temp was between 18-25 degrees. It also says to keep it in the bucket for 2 weeks but the instructions say 7 days! ,all very confusing
I'll give the book way of doing a go next time round and see if its any better.
Cheers for everyones help folks, much appreciated

malky1841 said:

Yea I read that and its completely different to the instructions on the beer pack I bought. It says to boil the malt extract and water but the beer kit say just to add it to the fermenting bucket and top up to the 5 gallon mark with 5 gallons of water making sure the temp was between 18-25 degrees. It also says to keep it in the bucket for 2 weeks but the instructions say 7 days! ,all very confusing
I'll give the book way of doing a go next time round and see if its any better.
Cheers for everyones help folks, much appreciated

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Been a while since i've brewed extracts, so I can't say for sure whether you should boil yours or not (usually you would, but you may have some no-boil kit or something). I'd definitely boil the water you're topping off with (to kill any bacteria in it), then let it cool covered (you can cool it quickly in an ice bath) and then top off.
As for fermentation - I'd leave it for at least 2 weeks in the bucket.