Final gravity.. Oops

[MustangManiac]

So I just kegged what I'm hoping is going to be a great IPA. After putting the keg in the fridge and pressurizing to force carbonate, my wife asked "what is the alcohol content?". Suddenly it dawned on me I forgot to take the final gravity. Can I pour some and take the fg? It's been a couple of hours.

Thanks,
MM

 

[ktm250]

Sure. Just make sure you let any carbonation gas off before you take measurements. The bubbles make the hydrometer float.

 

[MustangManiac]

Sure. Just make sure you let any carbonation gas off before you take measurements. The bubbles make the hydrometer float.

Thanks!

 

[neko]

And let it get to room temp, but I guess it would get close enough by the time it got flat.

 

[betarhoalphadelta]

Yep. And you know, if you buy a refractometer, you can pull a few tiny mL off your pint of beer and check your FG after the beer is carbonated

One of these days I'll actually get around to checking FG on my beers... Even with a refractometer I find I'm too lazy to do it...

 

[MustangManiac]

Yep. And you know, if you buy a refractometer, you can pull a few tiny mL off your pint of beer and check your FG after the beer is carbonated

One of these days I'll actually get around to checking FG on my beers... Even with a refractometer I find I'm too lazy to do it...

That sounds cool. I have an old-school hydrometer. I need to brew a few batches without buying any more equipment. Seems I'm always buyin something.

 

[MustangManiac]

I just took the final gravity for my beer.. it's 1.021. The initial gravity was 1.042. Based on a calculator I found online, the alcohol content is 3.5%. When the guy at the brew store was helping me to gather the ingredients he told me this would be a big beer.. 8-9%. The beer (an IPA) tastes sweet. This beer bubbled for 3 days straight and spent a total of 7 days in the primary. It's the second beer that I've made that has been weak. The last beer (a dunkel) was very week (I didn't measure the alcohol content) Any suggestions as to what I might be doing wrong?

 

[dogbar]

I'm making a few assumptions here, but if you're a new brewer you're probably doing extract or partial mash with a partial boil? So when you checked the OG, there's a very good chance that you hadn't thoroughly mixed in the top-off water, which is why it measured so low.

 

[dogbar]

Also, the beer probably tastes sweet because you're not getting great hop utilization in a stove top partial boil.

Things to try (and search for) would be late extract addition, moving to full boils outside, or using a program like beersmith to adjust your hop schedule to match your equipment.

 

[ktblunden]

Post the recipe. 1.021 is very high for an IPA. It could be that you started with a much higher OG and didn't get a good reading if you did a partial boil and topped off like dogbar said, but it sounds like it wasn't done fermenting. The good news is that because you're kegging you don't have to worry about bottle bombs.

 

[ktblunden]

You should always check the gravity before racking out of primary. Take 2-3 readings on consecutive days and make sure the gravity is stable before moving it. Just because there's no more airlock activity doesn't mean it's not still fermenting.

 

[sweed]

So I just kegged what I'm hoping is going to be a great IPA. After putting the keg in the fridge and pressurizing to force carbonate, my wife asked "what is the alcohol content?". Suddenly it dawned on me I forgot to take the final gravity. Can I pour some and take the fg? It's been a couple of hours.

Thanks,
MM

How much extract did the homebrew ipa come with? At 8-9%, that's an IIPA.

 

[MustangManiac]

I don't have the recipe in front of me. I'll post it this evening.

 

[jwalker1140]

With extract batches you don't really have to worry about missing your OG, and since 1.042 isn't going to give you a 8-9% beer, my guess is that you didn't mix up your extract well enough when you took your OG reading. I would assume your OG was actually what your recipe says it should be. I'd calculate your ABV from that rather than your OG reading.

 

[MustangManiac]

Sorry it has taken me so long to post this. Here is the recipe I followed.

13# 2 row
3.5# 6 row
10oz crystal 150
Mash for 60mins. @ 152 degrees

The hop schedule is as follows:
Glacier hops
1.5oz @60mins
1oz @50mins
1.5oz @40mins
1.5oz @30mins
1oz @20mins
1.5oz @10mins