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Franfkv

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I did a coopers home brew kit and my first hydrometer reading was 1.040 2 weeks later ( today ) hydrometer reading is 1.020 am I correct in thinking that that is a very low alcohol content, first time brewing
 
You are correct. That'd be about 2.9% ABV and 1.020 is an extremely unlikely target gravity for a general purpose kit.

Did you temperature-correct the readings?
 
No I didn't temperature - correct the readings is there anything that can be done at this point to bring up the alcohol content in the finished beer
 
1.040 Original Gravity (OG) is a low original gravity beer, meaning it will be a small, sessionable, low abv beer. Nothing wrong with that, but that's the beer you brewed.

1.020 Final Gravity (FG) is typically too high for this type of beer and its probably not done fermenting yet. Let it go for a while longer and take another measurement, perhaps. Rouse it and raise the temp a little if you think your yeast just quit too early. If you can shave off a few more gravity points, that translates to a little higher ABV.

My advice is to not focus on alcohol content - brew a good beer.
 
I did a coopers home brew kit and my first hydrometer reading was 1.040 2 weeks later ( today ) hydrometer reading is 1.020 am I correct in thinking that that is a very low alcohol content, first time brewing

Was this an extract kit? What was the projected (not measured) OG. It's not uncommon for extract OG readings to be a bit low from their actual because of incomplete mixing pre-fermentation. If you're confident in your water volumes, I'd use the projected OG from the kit.
 
yes this was a extract kit coopers Canadian blonde it said on the little instruction booklet"typical hydrometer readings 1.042(og) 1.006(fg)
 
The good news is your measured OG is pretty much spot on to the instructions.
Your current gravity is off from the instructions though.
Two things you can think of trying are:
Raise your fermentation temperature by either moving it to a warmer room in your house or use an electric blanket with a temp controller if you have one.
Also, you can use a cleaned and sanitized spoon to stir up the yeast from the bottom of the bucket and get it back into suspension so the yeast can chomp on some more sugars. Stir gently and try your hardest to not splash or introduce any air to your wort.
 
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