very low alcohol content

This is my first batch of beer so I have some questions. I researched for a while before I started and bought a kit and recipe kit from midwest. I brewed their nut brown ale and made it into my brown van ale. Anyway, it bubbled for a good 3 days and I left it in the fermenter for a full 2 weeks. It was at about 65 degrees. Although it tasted very good, it had little alcohol content. I still drink it and no one else knows the difference. Any ideas as to what happened? Seems like if it was bubbling away for 3 days there would be more alcohol content.

Thanks for the advise in advance.

How do you know it is low alcohol? What was your OG and your FG?

Knowing how much sugar was fermented is the only true measure of how much alcohol is in there (without laboratory analysis), as sometimes it can really hide.

The sg was 1.04 and the finishing was supposed to be 1.01, but it was very close to 1.04 maybe a little lower. I was a little confused on how to read it so I didn't worry about it because it tasted so good. Then I had a 3n1 batch of lager to put in the freezer and I wanted to test it to see how cold it was on the lowest setting and I could keep it around 30 degrees. Well to test it more I put 1 mich light in there and 1 brown van ale and the brown van ale froze. It was at this point that I realized there couldn't be much alcohol in it because it should not have froze.

gent1987 said:

The sg was 1.04 and the finishing was supposed to be 1.01, but it was very close to 1.04 maybe a little lower. I was a little confused on how to read it so I didn't worry about it because it tasted so good. Then I had a 3n1 batch of lager to put in the freezer and I wanted to test it to see how cold it was on the lowest setting and I could keep it around 30 degrees. Well to test it more I put 1 mich light in there and 1 brown van ale and the brown van ale froze. It was at this point that I realized there couldn't be much alcohol in it because it should not have froze.

Click to expand...

That's 3.9% by volume. What was the recipe... give us the exact amount of extract you put in and exactly how much water. I bet you're OG measurement was off. This is very common with new brewers and with partial boil brewing.

Beer will freeze at a higher temp than you think. With a 3.9% beer, the freezing point would be 29F. So you're still right there is the gravities are right.

But are you sure your freezer only made it down to 30F? That's a really really worthless freezer, as it's not going to freeze a lot of things.

gent1987 said:

The sg was 1.04 and the finishing was supposed to be 1.01, but it was very close to 1.04 maybe a little lower.

Click to expand...

I think your readings are incorrect. You may be missing a place behind the decimal, though.

If the SG at the beginning was 1.040 but it finished at 1.040, that's not possible. If your finishing was supposed to be 1.010, it should have finished around 1.008-1.014 or so.
Are you just missing a digit in the readings? (Most people use all of the numbers, even the zeros, so that there isn't such confusion).

Yep we need the recipe and more digits.

sorry, I should have put the digits right. It started at 1.040 and finished very close to that but a little lower. I used the 4 pound can of munton's nut brown ale hopped liquid malt extract. There was also 2 pounds of light spray dried extract. In the kits from midwest they tell you what it should start out at and what it should end up with and it should have ended with 1.010.

The freezer was set on the highest temperature ( teetering between off and 1). I don't understand why the michelob light didn't freeze and the home brew did.

I do agree my measurements could have been off, that thing confused me for a while. That's why I didn't think much of it. I just thought maybe I took the readings wrong, but when this one froze and the michelob light didn't I knew something was wrong. I also didn't notice much of an effect after drinking a 6 pack of these.

gent1987 said:

sorry, I should have put the digits right. It started at 1.040 and finished very close to that but a little lower. I used the 4 pound can of munton's nut brown ale hopped liquid malt extract. There was also 2 pounds of light spray dried extract. In the kits from midwest they tell you what it should start out at and what it should end up with and it should have ended with 1.010.

The freezer was set on the highest temperature ( teetering between off and 1). I don't understand why the michelob light didn't freeze and the home brew did.

Click to expand...

Wow. Even assuming that you misread the OG, and it was higher than you thought, it sounds like you got basically no attenuation. Like the yeast wasn't even there, in spite of the fact that you saw at least a little evidence of fermentation. Did you get proper carbonation?

Weird. If your yeast died off, you wouldn't have gotten good carbonation, but if it didn't die off, I would have thought you'd have a much lower FG, or bottle bombs from all the residual fermentables going into the bottles along with the priming sugar.

What's "a little lower than that"? If it started at 1.040, and it finished near that, it would be very, very sweet and cause bottle bombs.

Also, michelob light will freeze. There's something wrong with that.

gent1987 said:

I used the 4 pound can of munton's nut brown ale hopped liquid malt extract. There was also 2 pounds of light spray dried extract.

Click to expand...

That should give you something in the neighborhood of 1.046 for an OG, assuming 5 gallons.

Take a gravity reading on your finished beer, and you'll be able to figure your ABV.