close to first time brewing success?

[GranillaNutz]

well 2 weeks into my bottle conditioning, i decided to crack on open and venture into the tasting of the brewing process. my first taste was by accident, because my autosiphon broke and i had to resort to siphon by mouth (which incorporated the green beer taste to my virgin pallet). i had bottled the last of the drippings from my secondary for this personal experiment and it had a reasonable amount of trub in the bottom of the bottle. when i opend the bottle (still at around 68 degrees), there was that nice pffffffffft sound that i wanted to hear, but not far after, it erupted like a volcano. i poured a sample into a vile to take a gravity reading, and it ended up being round 1.017. it's more than likely a "near beer", but i had a sip, swishd it round and spit. although not really drinkable yet, the taste that i was looking for was definitely there. i'm sure the AV% was not there, but i didn't expect 100% satisfaction from my first batch. the color was right, the taste was right, and lots of bubbles in my beer. i dove straight into an all grain batch for my first brew, and although not a perfect beer yet, i do appreciate the knowledge that i've gained from this website, and do intend on making that perfect beer. cheers hbt

 

[Parker36]

The carbonation may have an effect on your gravity reading also. Give it another couples weeks and try a second - it will be better - I promise

 

[GranillaNutz]

i believe u on the extra couple of weeks... i'm skeptical because my og was 1.030. there was a reasonable miscalculation in the amount of water used to mash and sparge due to inexperience. i ended up with 7 gallons of wort for a 5 gallon batch. although i could be reading my hydrometer wrong and i could've put the hydrometer in at a higher than recommended temp. i'm glad that my readings from this site have made me aware of my mistakes and what should be done to improve.

 

[powderbock]

You can adjust your hydrometer reading for varying temperatures above and below 60 degrees, its very easy on beersmith or similar beer program.
With seven gallons of wort you can still boil down to 5.5 gallons (leading to a higher OG) Actually I usually end up with that much as my system boils away more than the usual gallon/hour.
As for your carbonation, it may improve when you chill it as some of the gas will go back into the beer If you haven't already I would chill all of them to stop the yeast from continuing to ferment leading to even more gas. Maybe used too much primer.
I bottled my first batch and have kegged ever since.

 

[GranillaNutz]

i think with the humidity here in louisiana, the evaperation per hour ratio is a lot less than what beersmith or promash calculates. that's where i f'd up. i used the default. i have 2 16 oz bottles with one tsp priming sugar each, 2 1 liter bottles with 1 tsp priming sugar each, and one corny keg with 1/3 cup priming sugar. i will chill one of the 16 oz bottles for a couple of days and see what it tastes like. thnx for the feedback. my next batch will take flight this weekend i believe if weather permits.