3 days after first brew day...

Hi all,

So excited to be brewing (how have I never done this before???!!!) I'd like to start by thanking everyone here for such a wealth of info. It's really a treasure trove.

Anyway, I have a few questions re: temp & O.G. Here are the details:

Crosby Baker Pale Ale kit
LME: 3.3# Muntons Hopped Light
DME: 2.0# Muntons Light
Hops: Munton's UK First Gold Pellets, 1oz. @ 7.3% alpha

Chilled wort: 1.042 @ 58* (dry yeast pitch temp. 1 pack -no starter)

Ok - The pitch temp was cold, so I wrapped the fermenter in a sleeping bag and got the temp up to ~ 61 with a heating pad. It took about 12 hours, but then started bubbling nicely. It held ~ 64* for three days then airlock went quiet. Not too worried, since it's been said often that airlock activity isn't a good indicator. So, for fun I took a gravity reading and it was 1.018.

Does that Gravity fall seem right for such a short, cold fermentation? I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the gravity thing, but it just seems kinda quick to me.

Thanks!

dh

Sounds like a good start, I bet if you leave it another week or two you will drop more.

Just leave it in there another 3 weeks and then bottle it. Sounds like it is coming along nicely. hardest part is just leaving it alone.

Sweet!

One other question (that SWMBO brought up last night):

IF: Yeast + Sugar = C02 and ethenol
AND: ethenol lowers specific gravity (*right?*)
THEN: wouldn't bottle conditioning with sugar slightly change the s.g. of the beer in the bottle?

OR: is the priming sugar not working with the yeast in the bottle, but the existing alcohol, to create carbonation?

dh

When it is time to the bottle, the yeast has finished working with the sugars in your beer. The left over sugars are most likely unfermentable and are there to give your beer some body and residual sweetness. The priming solution is added to to your beer during bottling to give your yeast some fermentable sugar to carbonate the beer while conditioning in the bottles. The priming sugar is very fermentable and should be eaten up readily by the yeast over 3 weeks. Not sure how much alcohol it will actually add to the bottles. I'm guessing very little

I am not sure how much the density of the fluid can change in a constant volume,

density = mass/volume

I figure if the density of the gas above the brew goes up, then the density of brew is going down, but it ain't much.


In your case you are using over 6 pounds of malt, and probably only a quarter of a pound of bottling sugar.

looks like you're getting a good fermentation. congrats!

Sounds like a good fermentation! What kind of yeast did you use?
...from my experence priming sugar adds about .1% or .2% abv.

It was a Muntons dry yeast. I wrote down spec's on all the ingredients except the yeast.

Update: 7 days from brew day and I'm at 1.015

aaaaand I have another question.

Is ABV determined by the OG - FG? In other words, if beer A goes from 1.050 to 1.018 and beer B goes from 1.040 to 1.018, are they the same ABV or different?

Surely there's a thread on this, but I couldn't find anything succinct enough for me finish...

Thanks in advance! And Viva Los Yeasties!

dh

(FG-OG) x 131.25 = ABV.

I usually don't even look at the SG reading for two weeeks. i now it can get impatient but the less you open the lid, the less chance of getting beasties in your beer.

two weeks, check, if it is close to expected final gravity, let it sit three days. if high for expected final gravity, wait a week. check again. three days of same SG, fermentation is done and bottling can take place.

some on here will not check for a month, to allow all fermentation to finish, yeast clean up, and settling to occur.