Bavarian Hefe OG & FG

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anteup

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Brewed an extract kit of Bavarian Hefe from LHBS. My OG was 1.047, 1 week in primary. Ranked into carboy and after 1 1/2 wks SG is 1.019. Does this seem correct? OG seems too low? And i'll check the SG in 2 days to see what's happening.
 
The OG seems fine, but the FG seems high. The reason is probably that you racked it so soon. 1 week in primary really isn't enough time. You removed the beer from a lot of active yeast before it was done fermenting, now the yeast that are left are having a hard time fermenting the beer out completely. It probably won't go as low as it needs to, and the yeast might become stressed out and throw out some off flavors.

Generally speaking, I leave my beer on the yeast 3 weeks to give them time to clean everything up, then I either bottle directly from the primary if I have the bottles or keg, or put them in a secondary carboy. Be patient next time and give them time to do their job.
 
This makes sense but did what directions said,"Once primary fermentation subsides 3-5 day there are two options. A) Single stage fermentation 3-5 days additional in primary B) Two stage fermentation, rack into carboy and let sit 7-14 days."
 
The kit should be using a traditional Hef yeast. The good news is Hef yeasts tend to stay in suspension much longer, so you should still have a pretty fair amount of yeast in the beer. I'd try to get/keep the temperature to the 66-68 deg F range and let it go for a few more days and see what happens. A Hef should finish right around 1.010, maybe a tad higher for extract.

In the future, letting the Hef go for a full 2 weeks in the primary is the better way to go.

PS. You might want to double check you are reading your hydrometer correctly as well. Hef yeast don't usually give up so easily.
 
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