Gravity reading

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KIDD

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what should a normal gravity reading for an american pale ale after 10 days in the primary. I racked to secondary and took a hydrometer reading and got 1.005. Thanks
 
It depends on the starting gravity and the recipe and the ingredients. That seems low. Did you add sugar? What was the recipe?
 
It depends on your recipe, but I think an 'average' final gravity for a pale ale is anywhere from 1.010 - 1.018

1.005 seems pretty low, but someone with more experience could give better info. I think the lower the final gravity the dryer the beer will be and the higher the ABV% will be.
 
No, but unless you plan on putting the hydrometer directly in the fermenter, it's the best thing for reading a sample. You need a container that is deep, but very narrow so that you don't waste much beer. Puting the fermenter in a bucket is easy, but hard to take a reading. A carboy is easy to read, but har to get it in and out. Get the hydrometer jar...
 
My first pale I did it fermented to 1.004. It's really dry. Guess my yeast was extra fresh and awesome when I didn't want it to be.

As for the hydrometer, yes, I too would recommend the jar.
 
You have probably mashed on too low temperatures. 1.005 is way too low and the beer will be dry and dull. What was your mashing temperature? If you did a two stage @58C and @66C with well modified malt, you will get about 1.003-1.005 FG. Perhps you could achieve so low a FG with single infusion mashing as well, but you would have to go really low, like 63-64C or something and use really well modified malt.

In a nutshell: your FG has nothing to do with yeast or fermentation temps, you just got too much fermentable sugars. Buy a better thermometre and check your mashing temps.
 
Captain Tex said:
Do I need to buy the test cylinder too?

While you can use a hydrometer in the plastic tube that it comes in, I find that very hard to read. Buy the cylinder, you won't regret it.
 
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