Second beer in the primary... and its carbonated

This beer is completely different than my first beer. Its almost orange while my first beer was dark, the krausen is white and already receded while my first beer was brown and never receded, the gravity was 1.056 instead 1.030, DME instead of LME, and not a kit. Anyways, I just took a gravity reading after a week and got 1.014. Based off of my average so far, the beer is only at 5%, but it tastes higher. It also tastes lightly carbonated already, which makes no sense. But it tastes good. BTW, its going to be a watermelon wheat beer.

It's residual C02. Some always stays in the beer. The colder the more stays. If you want to be more precise with carbonating you need to account for it.

Conroe said:

It's residual C02. Some always stays in the beer. The colder the more stays. If you want to be more precise with carbonating you need to account for it.

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I am not at the level to be able to account for anything lol

As far as my gravity reading goes, can I trust it? Or has some stuff settled or something? It seems so low.

Ducky said:

This beer is completely different than my first beer. Its almost orange while my first beer was dark, the krausen is white and already receded while my first beer was brown and never receded, the gravity was 1.056 instead 1.030, DME instead of LME, and not a kit. Anyways, I just took a gravity reading after a week and got 1.014. Based off of my average so far, the beer is only at 5%, but it tastes higher. It also tastes lightly carbonated already, which makes no sense. But it tastes good. BTW, its going to be a watermelon wheat beer.

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Well, every beer is different and each fermentation is different. I noticed that my watermelon wheat beer was pretty orange, too, at first. It lightened up a little, and then turned kind of yellow. I added the watermelon juice in secondary, and it turned an unappetizing brown. However, it cleared again to a yellow color and here it is today:



The reason your beer tastes lightly carbonated now is because the co2 stays trapped in solution as fermentation finishes up, especially at cooler temperatures. (Remember, the yeast eats sugar and excretes alcohol and co2). So, it's just bubbly because of that.

Making beer is a great hobby! I've never had two fermentations exactly the same, so don't worry about them being different. Yeast are live organisms, and all the ingredients are different (wheat, hops, different malts, etc) each time, the temperature might vary slightly, etc, so each fermentation can behave differently. As long as the end result as is expected, though, that's the important thing!