New member with gravity questions!

Hello all!

I got into home brewing about 4 months ago and have brewed 4 full batches since. I had always kegged them and the instructions were a little more thorough then. Now, I am bottling them which is a little bit of a pain, and the recipes I do have, don't tell me what the end grav should be.


I did indeed forget to check the starting grav. newbie mistake.

Here are the recipes (I think it's been 19 days or so since we made the two batches)

German Alt:
6.6 lbs. Gold Liquid Malt Extract
1 lb. British Pale Grain M&F two row (cracked)
1 lb. Dark German Crystal Grain M&F (cracked)
¼ lb. Special Roast Grain (cracked)
2 oz.. Chocolate Grain (cracked)
3 oz. Hallertauer hops
1 tsp. Irish Moss
1 pkg. Wyeast Liquid Yeast - German Ale


Scottish Strong:
6.6 lbs. Gold Liquid Malt Extract
3.3 lbs. Gold Liquid Malt Extract
3 lbs. British Crystal Malt (cracked)
1 oz. Chinook Hops(boil)
1 oz. Fuggles Hops
1 oz. Fuggles Hops
1 oz. Fuggles Hops
1 pkg. Wyeast Liquid Yeast - London Ale


THank you all for your input I want to bottle ASAP!

Flip

In short, your final gravity is whatever gravity you reach when it goes no further.

Regardless of any instructions, once your readings are constant for three days straight...your done with fermentation. Time to rack to a secondary (or allow an additional 10-15 days in the primary).

Take a reading tonight...tomorrow night and the following night.

If the readings are constant and you are at least 20+ days in the fermenter, you "can" bottle. That time varies considerably with the "bigness" of the beer.

Your scottish could probably use a good 4-5 weeks in a fermetning vessel to properly condition. Do you have/use a secondary?

BierMuncher said:

In short, your final gravity is whatever gravity you reach when it goes no further.

Regardless of any instructions, once your readings are constant for three days straight...your done with fermentation. Time to rack to a secondary (or allow an additional 10-15 days in the priamry).

Click to expand...

Yeah, I figured so, the readings stopped changing probably after about a week.
it's been about 10 days since then so I think it might be ready to go.


Now, for bottling, (never bottled before), do I take my big bucket, put the priming solution into it, mix with the beer then bottle from there? because I do recall when learning and reading that air is the devil and the bucket and mixing = a lot of air.


Thanks again!

Flip

Don't mix, siphon from the primary into the bottling bucket and do it so that there is as little disturbance in it's path into the bucket as possible. be sure to put the priming sugar into the bottleing bucket first.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11.html check out chapter 11 from our good friend John Palmer for some pointers. :rockin:

most people bottle first, then keg

Dycokac said:

Don't mix, siphon from the primary into the bottling bucket and do it so that there is as little disturbance in it's path into the bucket as possible. be sure to put the priming sugar into the bottleing bucket first.

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter11.html check out chapter 11 from our good friend John Palmer for some pointers. :rockin:

most people bottle first, then keg

Click to expand...

hahaha I Know! it's just that when I made those 4 batches I was doing it using my roommates dad's equipment. He taught us all we know, but we never learned to bottle. lol Kegging is still to expensive for us at the moment. maybe take out a student loan and get the job done.



Anyway, checked the gravity, the german alt is at 1015 and the scottish is at 102. I can't wait to bottle these babies and then drink em!

gentle stirring doesn't aerate beer. whipping it up like its scrambled eggs obviously does.

Here is a really good page on WIKIPEDIA


Every thing you need to know about Gravity

here I am 2 years later with many more batches under my belt. interesting to see the beers I made back then.

this is a great forum by the way

yeah where have you been elmetal!

I for some reaosn just brewed maybe 8 batches since 2007. I'm making up for lost time now though. I have done 8 since july!