Pull a sample, check with hydrometer. What was your OG and what is it after you test. Also just a reminder keep super sanitary and don't dump your sample back in!
Well you should be tasting your samples as well! No need to waste! Lol as for gravity, some people I seem to see don't seem to worry about it. This makes no sense to me because without it you won't know what your abv is, I mean you could backwards math it with all the equations of your malt and fefmentabkes etc etc. Or just use your hydrometer before you pitch your yeast! That may also be due to my lack of love for math though too! Lol however throw up your recipe and take a sample and through your current SG. I'm sure someone here with way more knowledge then me will help!
An airlock is a device to allow the release of excess gas. It is not a gauge of fermentation, only a way to allow the excess gas to escape without blowing the top off the fermenter. Krausen or the ring left behind from the krausen is an indicator that fermentation has taken place but the hydrometer is the final word on it. If the gravity has gone down, it fermented. If it has gone down and is now stable over a 2 or 3 day period, fermentation is stopped, usually because the yeast has eaten all it can and the beer is now ready to bottle or keg.
If you are doing extract kits, use the OG that the kit specifies. It is really difficult to get proper mixing between the wort and the top off water and most new brewers panic when the gravity is way low. It really isn't low, they just got a sample from an area with more water than wort. With and extract kit you can't miss the gravity unless you really mess up and add way too little or way to much water.
OK, when barley is harvested it contains starches and protein in each kernel. We don't want to eat barley most of the time, we want to drink beer. To get the starches and proteins in that kernel into a form that can be fermenter takes a few steps. Malting is the first. The grain is wetted and kept warm until it begins the sprouting process. Now, we don't want to raise another crop of barley, we want to make beer so the barley that has begun sprouting is dried (kilned) to stop the sprouting. That has activated the enzymes that can convert the starch to a form of sugar called maltose (and a bunch of other things). If the temperature becomes too high during the drying process it destroys the enzymes but makes the malted grain different colors and flavors.
The malting house then can bag up the grains and ship them to brewers (like me for instance) and I will mash the grains (no, not with a potato masher, its a process of grains in water that is between about 145 and 150F.) which will allow the enzymes to make the sugars that the yeast work on to provide alcohol. For some of the grain, instead of shipping the whole grain, the will do the mash right there, collect the sweet wort that has been extracted, and concentrate it. Some of that will be packaged with some water remaining, some will be dried completely and these are sold as malt extract or simply extract.
Home brew supply places will take this extract and add some specialty grains, some variety or varieties of hops, and a recommended yeast and give the resulting package a name. That defines an extract kit, a complete recipe kit in a box. There are others who will mix the specialty grains and hops and sell the resulting liquid as a hopped extract, needing only water and yeast to be added to create beer.
I hope that helps you understand the terminology better. It took me much longer to learn all that than it did to type it.
Here's a list of some of the hops that this particular supplier stocks. Note that this isn't the whole array of hops, just what this supplier has. http://www.ritebrew.com/category-s/1941.htm
This is a listing of the grains this supplier has. http://www.ritebrew.com/category-s/1954.htm
I mentioned the variations in yeasts. Take a look through this list. http://www.ritebrew.com/category-s/1834.htm
Then there are things you don't see in many commercial beers but can be fun to experiment with too. http://www.ritebrew.com/category-s/1833.htm
You have a whole world of brewing to learn about. Go try some things and enjoy the hobby.
Also 28c is too warm to be fermenting at. Try to get it down to 20c for the next brew
Thanks BC, yer it only gets up there when the day hits 39 and up deg C, most of the time im sitting above 18deg c to 22 deg c.
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