first brew: I think the yeast is stuck

[Razzmyth]

Hello.

I'm just getting into this hobby and just did my first brew a few weeks ago.

SG right after boil and cool down was 1.032
A week later it dropped to 1.015. It was at 1.015 for two days so I transfered to a secondary. Now a week later it's still at 1.015.
The beer tastes like water downed flat beer.
Next to no activity in the beer.
I thought the SG should be lower with no activity.

Should I be worried or just go ahead and bottle and wait?

Thanks,
Darryl

 

[H-ost]

At 1.015 you are probably safe from bottle bombs. I would bottle it.

 

[AmandaK]

It probably tastes like "watered down flat beer" because it is. Without knowing your style/recipe, I'm going to assume that 1.032 SG (that's starting gravity) is a bit low.

1.015 is not "stuck" and is probably your final gravity (FG, not SG).

 

[Balue]

1.032 is a pretty low SG provide recipe and process details so we can help. Was it AG, partial or extract? Full boil or partial with top off? As it is from your readings a 2% beverage would explain the watered down taste

 

[Razzmyth]

It is a Coopers Canadian Blonde kit. I divided the extract into 5 equal parts so that I can do 1 gallon batches.
When I brewed the first 1 gallon, I poured the boiling wort into a cold glass carboy and it cracked, lost it all.
Second time, this brew, I boiled 2 gallons. Cooled the wort and then put into two one gallon carboys (I learned from my first mistake). I divided the entire yeast packet into the two one gallon carboys (I think this is my second mistake).
Activity was really good for about 4 days and then suddenly stopped.
I was fermenting in my basement which is a pretty steady 18-19 deg C (sorry don't know what that is in deg F).

 

[iskuse]

You're beer won't be carbed until you "prime it" with sugar and bottle it. Also like stated above your alchohol content is 3% or less with those numbers.

 

[zeg]

Did you add additional sugar to the kit? I don't know it personally, but a quick google suggests they wanted you to add another kg of sugar (or additional malt extract, etc) to the batch. Your numbers are a pretty much in line for running only with the extract from the kit, which will come out weak (my ordinary bitter, 3.7%, was 1.035 OG I believe, and that's an intentionally very light beer).

The rest of your experience sounds fairly normal to me. A four-day active primary is not at all unusual, especially for a low starting gravity. The final gravity is a bit high, but not unheard of for extracts.

It sounds to me like it's ok, I'd just let it sit for another week or two for good measure. Wouldn't expect the gravity to drop further (though it's possible), but it'll only help the flavor.

 

[Pie_Man]

First off, congrats on the first beer. This is a great forum and you'll find a lot of information to help you improve your future beers here.

I'm not surprised your beer is stuck/finished. 1.015 is in the ballpark as a FG for many beer styles. Also, when you transfer the beer into a secondary, you're removing most of the yeast from the beer, so that helps to solidify your final gravity; the remaining yeast in suspension can still reduce the gravity slightly, but yours is probably finished at 1.015. What was the FG you were expecting? You might want to wait a couple of more days for the yeast to help condition your beer and then you're ready to bottle.

A couple things to think about:

1. Was this a partial boil, did you brew several gallons in a pot and then add water to raise the final volume to 5 gallons? If so, this process is notorious for creating inaccurate OG readings as the water and wort are different concentrations and don't mix together quickly. Posting your recipe and part of your process would help. 1.032 is a very low OG. I believe this reading was inaccurate, or the recipe you follow was not very good.

2. I'm guessing the instructions with the recipe recommended transferring the beer to a secondary vessel. I, and many others, find this process unnecessary except when adding fruit, aging beer, or maybe dry hopping. For future batches consider the purpose of every step you take and weigh the pros and cons of doing that. In this case, the purpose of a secondary is probably to give your beer better clarity by removing much of the yeast that's in the bottom of the fermenter. There are other ways to acheive more clear beer and transferring to a second vessel risks contamination and requires more effort and clean up. Besides it's the yeast in suspension that make the beer less clear. Transferring the beer to a second container doesn't make the yeast think, "oh yay, now I can drop to the bottom".

Sorry if I'm getting a little off topic, just trying to help. Let us know your recipe and we can go from there.

 

[Razzmyth]

Thanks for all the quick replies.

my recipe.
500ml Coopers
100g corn sugar
200g LDME
Approx 9.2L water

I boiled the extract, corn sugar and LDME with 6L of water for about 20minutes.
I put pre-boiled 5L of water in mason jars and into the frezzer about an hour before boiling.
When I finished boiling I put the pot in a sink of cold water and then added the freezer water to help bring the temp down and the volume up. I stirred the wort after adding the water. I think I added about 1 L too much of cold water. That's the reason why I think my OG was too low at 1.032.

The coopers instruction says that OG should be 1.042 and FG 1.006.
That's why I'm a bit worried, too low on OG and too high on FG.

Thanks