Let me remind you this is for a 5 Gallon batch but i did mine at 2.5 Gallon so i used half of everything except the yeast
Malt Extract:
Pale 6 lbs.
Corn sugar 0.5 lb.
Grain Bill:
Caravienne Malt 4 oz
Carafoam Malt 4 oz
Aromatic Malt 4 oz
Biscuit Malt 4 oz
Hopping Schedule:
#1 Saaz (4.2%) 1.2 oz 60 min
#2 Saaz (4.2%) .4 oz 15 min
#3 Saaz (4.2%) .2 oz 0 min
Starting Gravity:
1.046
Fermentation Temp:
65-75 degrees F
Yeast:
WhiteLabs WLP 550
With 3lbs of liquid extract and .25lbs of Dextrose (corn sugar) in a 2.5 gallon batch, you should have an Original Gravity (OG) reading of around 1.057.
According to my hydrometer, the 2.5% (
potential) alcohol line corresponds to a final gravity (FG) of about 1.019. That's a little bit high for a final gravity for this beer, meaning it will be more malty/sweet tasting (it has more residual sugars in it than most common beers). You probably would have done better if you aerated more, or made a starter... or maybe you needed to let it sit for another week or two before bottling... or maybe the yeast just wasn't that fresh. But that works out to an alcohol content of 5.0%ABV. I would have thought you could have gotten it closer to 5.5% just with more care for the yeast.
But malty isn't a bad thing, necessarily, especially since you used 2 ounces of hops, which is a LOT for a 2.5 gallon batch. You have about 46 IBU (international bitterness units) in your beer which is PLENTY to balance out a malty 5% beer. If you are new to craft beer, you will probably find this beer to be quite bitter and very filling. If you are very familiar with craft beer, you might find your recipe to be reminiscent of a somewhat mild IPA.
Let me explain how the gravity readings work. You've got a long skinny stick. If you stick it in sugar water (or saltwater for that matter), it will float high because the liquid will be more dense. In pure water, it will read 1.000.. that's just kind of a baseline. Alcohol is less dense than water, so if you dipped it in pure alcohol it would read like 0.995 or so. And that's all assuming we're on the planet earth. Obviously the reading would be skewed if you were on the moon, or on Mars, because gravity would have less pull, and therefore the hydrometer would float even higher up. Hence, it's called a gravity reading.
Now, if you have sugar AND alcohol in a mixture, reading the measurement is pretty much useless because the sugar content increases the reading while the alcohol content decreases it. Soo.. the way we work around that is that you measure the Original Gravity (OG) while there's nothing but sugar and water (pre-fermentation). And then you take a reading afterwards (post-fermentation). Then you can use a chart to compare the values and determine alcohol content. Without the initial reading to compare it to, it could be 35% sugar (which raises the gravity above 1.000), 50% alcohol (which lowers it below 1.000), and 15% water... or 5% sugar, 80% water, and 15% alcohol and the reading would be about the same. (Those are rough guessed numbers... don't hold me to them).
Fortunately, when you are using extract, every brewer has a pretty good idea of how much sugar that adds to a given volume of water because it's a fairly standard product. Same with corn sugar. It's standard. So we can just plug it into a program like Beersmith and it'll spit out a calculated OG that will be pretty close. Then we can compare that to the FG reading that you DID take, and come up with the information needed to calculate/derive the alcohol content from commonly available charts... Or we forget those stupid charts and let Beersmith calculate it for us.
In this case, it works out to 5%ABV. Or, to use the simplified equation that was posted earlier 1.057 OG - 1.019 (FG) = .038 and then .038 x 131 = 4.978%ABV.
As for hops and bitterness, same thing... we let Beersmith calculate it. It's a cool program and I believe it has a free trial period. Check it out. Also, check out John Palmer's free ebook, How To Brew. It's a great resource and should help you wrap your head around a lot of issues and will definitely make you a better brewer. I've been brewing for over 10 years and still refer to it from time to time.
