help with first time brew

I made my first batch of beer a couple nights ago and its been sitting in a pail with an airlock built into it for three days. the problem is that the specific gravity was about 1.040 before i added the yeast and now after sitting for 3 days i checked it again and its sitting at about 1.090. that seems wrong to me but what do i know? anyone have some input that could help?

There is no possible way for your gravity to go UP after fermenting for three days, unless you tested the wort hot that would throw it off but you would have had to start with something way over 1.100. Is it bubbling? What has it been doing? What did you do?

My first guess would be that your OG reading was off, or you did not adjust for temperature either then or now (although that's a pretty big jump).

What type of beer is it?

I would just say, relax (don't panic), give it a week, then take another reading.

there are tiny little bubbles in the airlock but i don't ever see it bubble. it smells amazing and looks good. when i tested it the first time it was at about 1.040 and that was at about 27 degrees when i added the yeast.

Post the recipe you used...

I also agree that if you took the hydrometer reading with the wart still warm/hot then the reading will be off (how far depends on what temp you took it at)... It also depends on what you're using to take the SG readings. If you're using a refractometer, then you need to adjust the reading due to the presence of alcohol. If a hydrometer, then something else happened, or happened at both readings. If there's any carbonation in the sample, then you're getting false high readings. Spin the hydrometer (within the reading tube) and see where it settles to...

Also, are you sure you're reading the hydrometer properly??

morgan's canadian india pale ale is what i used.

Golddiggie said:

Also, are you sure you're reading the hydrometer properly??

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that was my first question

all i did to read the hydrometer was open the pail, sterilize the hydrometer and then spin it into the pail and let it bob up and down till it stops then i took the reading of where it was sitting. i'm not sure if that is the right way to do it?

mitsumotors said:

there are tiny little bubbles in the airlock but i don't ever see it bubble. it smells amazing and looks good. when i tested it the first time it was at about 1.040 and that was at about 27 degrees when i added the yeast.

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At 80F the hydrometer reading was low by about 3 gravity points... So it was more like 1.043... Still, not a huge difference... What temperature was the wort when you took the second reading??

I would suggest NOT taking any readings for at least 2 weeks from when you pitched the yeast. After that, take them every 2-3 days until you have a stable SG reading, with at least two matching readings.

What did you brew? What yeast did you use? Temperature that the yeast ferments at can be very important here. If you go too warm, chances are you'll need to give the wort more time on the yeast cake in order to get rid of off flavors.

second reading was at the temp that i'm fermenting the beer at which is about 25-26 degrees. in the instructions it says to let it sit for five days then its ready to bottle. so i thought i would check it to see how it was going?

mitsumotors said:

all i did to read the hydrometer was open the pail, sterilize the hydrometer and then spin it into the pail and let it bob up and down till it stops then i took the reading of where it was sitting. i'm not sure if that is the right way to do it?

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NOT considered best practice there... Get a thief (beer or wine, plastic or glass, glass being my preference) and use that to pull the sample into a hydrometer reading tube. This way you can close the lid on the wort and greatly reduce chances of contamination.

I still say don't touch it for at least 2 weeks... Let it go as it wishes... I will recommend placing a thermometer on the side of the fermenter, so that you know what the wort's temperature is. Depending on what yeast you used, it can have a temperature range that you'll want to keep it within so that it ferments with the desired flavors/characteristics. The right temperatures will also mean less time needed to do a cleanup later...

Also, if this is not a lager, or something getting more than one additional flavor element added post fermentation, leave it in primary for the duration... Do NOT rack to secondary. You've already opened the wort up to contamination once when you checked it after a few days. Keep that to a minimum.

mitsumotors said:

second reading was at the temp that i'm fermenting the beer at which is about 25-26 degrees. in the instructions it says to let it sit for five days then its ready to bottle. so i thought i would check it to see how it was going?

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Ignore those instructions... Yeast will work on it's own time scale. Fermenting HOT as you are, without knowing what yeast you used, you'll probably need at least some time to get the yeast to do some cleaning up...

Knowing WHAT you're brewing will be a huge help here...

k, i am kinda overwhelmed with this. a guy i work with brews beer and he gave me some pretty simple instructions for brewing it but it seems he doesn't know enough about this.

mitsumotors said:

k, i am kinda overwhelmed with this. a guy i work with brews beer and he gave me some pretty simple instructions for brewing it but it seems he doesn't know enough about this.

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give him this website and keep reading for yourself

mitsumotors said:

k, i am kinda overwhelmed with this. a guy i work with brews beer and he gave me some pretty simple instructions for brewing it but it seems he doesn't know enough about this.

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Again, without knowing WHAT you're brewing, we're stabbing in the dark here...

Still, conventional wisdom (for most of us) is to leave the wort on the yeast for 2-4 weeks. Higher OG brews get more time than lower OG brews.. With your OG in the lower end of the scale, I would test at 2 weeks in.. IF he said 5 days to bottle, he's on something. Or he's not making really good brew. OR he's using tight temperature control of his wort, and using a yeast that is super active, and clean, at that temperature. Since you're brewing HOT (for pretty much all ale yeasts, haven't looked at lager yeasts, and a good amount of Belgian yeasts) you'll need more time to let things clean up before thinking about bottling...

Do NOT just use gravity number to tell you when to bottle something. Taste it before you think it's ready. Otherwise, you'll spend all the effort to bottle something that will need a good month (or longer) before it's actually getting good.

I'm brewing with ale yeasts right now, some of them with different characteristics depending on what temperature you ferment at. Usually, I'm in the 3-4 week time frame before they finish fermenting and doing their clean-up... I don't have a fermentation chamber, so I'm at the mercy of the weather to keep things in the desired temperature range. Next place I live will have a fermentation chamber in it. Or where I ferment next will (might be doing that off-site shortly due to LL being a yackass) have one, or something to keep things in the desired range.

If you post up a recipe, of what you brewed, we'll be able to give you better info/feedback... Not knowing what your OG was supposed to be (we'd run it through software to see) compared with what you got is one hurdle. Not knowing what yeast you used is another one.

I also agree with trizzant... Get the guy to at least read the threads here about current methods/processes for home brewing... While there are some brews that could be ready to bottle in a week, or so, there's almost nothing you can make that won't be even better with more time on the yeast. Talking about a few weeks here, not months... Actually, unless you're fermenting in a conical fermenter, you can usually leave the wort/brew on the yeast cake for a few months without ill effects/issues. I typically don't go over a month on the yeast, if I want to harvest it. But, if you're not going to wash the yeast, then let it ride until it tastes ready to bottle...

Tasting the brew is one of the best ways to know when it's really ready.

Is your hydrometer on the celcius scale? All the ones I've seen are calibrated to 60F. It would screw up your readings if you didn't account for this.

all i did was pour in the Morgans Canadian Pale Ale tin, pour in the liquid dextrose, fill the pail 1/4 with boiling water, mix it up then add more hot and cold water until the pail was at about 27 degrees, i then took a specific gravity reading which was 1.050. i then added the packet of yeast that came with the tin and gave it a little stir then put the lid on the pail with a airlock drilled into the lid.

the hydrometer says sp. gr. 20*C/68*F on the bottom