Puzzle

i've got a bit of a puzzle here i was wondering if i could get some help with.
got my first batch of beer, well, lager, in the primary atm. its been in for about 5 days as of writing this.
i took a SG reading this morning, and its almost off the scale, way past the 'bottle' mark, and its still fermenting, the only thing i can think of why this is, is the fact that i'm using a brew belt, as i followed all instructions on the extract kit, used the yeast that came with it and sanatised propperly.
i had a brain fart and forgot to take a SG reading at the start so i dont have anything to compare it to, but it smells potant.
i dont want it to strong as i'm not to keen on massively strong beers. will this effect the beer itself? or the bottling? as i've heard that some yeast aren't to keen on high alcohol environments, can i bottle it as it stands just add less sugar to the bottles?

If you can give us your
Recipe that will help. If it was true lager yeast, then the heater belt doesn't sound too good. But let us know what your reading was and what yeast you used. That will help some people give you some answers.

Coopers Lager Kits
thats the exact kit i used and it came with yeast, sadly i through out the sachet that it came in, i'm not that experianced to make my own wort from scratch.
the reading was 1.011, took a taste as well, and it tastes fine, bit on the 'knock you on your arse' side but still quite nice lmao maybe i'm over reacting, as i'm used to making wine lmao

Sounds like a good final gravity (FG) for a lager. Enjoy.

Even when putting pencils between the belt and the bucket my brew belt kicks temps up to around 75. Way too high. Lose the belt. I am using an aquarium heater now that can do 68, I just ordered a temp controller from eBay for it so I can go lower

but if its still fermenting, what do i do about bottling it? wouldn't that be creating bottle bombs when adding carbonation drops? do i just leave it? lmao

beani5003 said:

but if its still fermenting, what do i do about bottling it? wouldn't that be creating bottle bombs when adding carbonation drops? do i just leave it? lmao

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Just leave it. It should be done fermenting in 2 weeks (from when the yeast was pitched). Then you can bottle. You'll know it's done when you have identical hydrometer measurements for 3 days.

beani5003 said:

but if its still fermenting, what do i do about bottling it? wouldn't that be creating bottle bombs when adding carbonation drops? do i just leave it? lmao

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*IF* its still fermenting, then yes. But its probably not. Take a couple gravity readings a couple days apart to verify.

I believe those Cooper lager kits are fermented with ale yeast. They are really light ales.

If you fermented at temperatures in the 70's you will have produced a lot of fusel alcohols. You need to ferment in the low to mid sixties.

At 5 days your beer is still 2 1/2 to 3 weeks from being ready to bottle. The yeast still have a lot of cleaning up to do.

If you did ferment hot you may want to put this beer in secondary and forget about it for 2-3 months and hope that the alcohol flavor dissipates.

i took another look at it about 10 minutes ago, and all signs of fermentaion have stoped, gona leave it for a couple of days, take another SG reading and if its still the same, bottle it weekend after next, would love to leave it sitting in a secondary, but i'm moving house, and a dont have another 5 gallon bin/demijohn to put it in lmao
but a will leave it for a while in the bottles lmao

I have the same Coopers DIY kit....seems pretty decent. Today is day 7 of fermintation. I was planning on leaving it in there another week yet and then bottle, then another 2 weeks of bottle conditioning. I couldn't wait to start another batch so I spent another $250 on brewing supplies......think I'm hooked.

WhiteEagle1 said:

I have the same Coopers DIY kit....seems pretty decent. Today is day 7 of fermintation. I was planning on leaving it in there another week yet and then bottle, then another 2 weeks of bottle conditioning. I couldn't wait to start another batch so I spent another $250 on brewing supplies......think I'm hooked.

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Welcome to the crowd. I looked as some of my brewing notes and noticed that I was brewing twice a week in November. With Christmas preparations and such, December was a little slack.

WhiteEagle1 said:

I couldn't wait to start another batch so I spent another $250 on brewing supplies......think I'm hooked.

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tell me about it, just wish i had the kit ta make all grain brews, would love to be able to make beer at that level, think i'll stick with extract then move onto DME, buying kit as i go, but i'm deffinately hooked.