First Time Brewer, my story and a question!

[Squill2k4]

Hello everyone! Well I'm super excited, my girlfriend bought me a beer brewing kit for my birthday! Well this Saturday I went with some friends to a local brewing store (The Weekend Brewer for anyone in the Central Virginia area) and got a beer kit. It's an English Nut Brown Ale. Here are the ingredients.

3lbs Light Dry Malt Extract
1 Can Amber Malt Extract
2oz Malto-Dextrin powder
12 oz Blended crushed grains
7/8 ounce Bittering Hops
1/2 ounce finish hops
Dry Ale Yeast
OG: 1.048 - 1.050
FG: 1.016 - 1.018

So everything went pretty well. I had some friends who have brewed before come over and give me a hand with everything. I think I did everything as instructed. All the temperatures were pretty close to what was instructed.

Now right before I added the yeast I took a gravity reading of the malt+top off water, and it read at 1.063. Woahhh, had a little freak out for a second. This gravity is much higher than the OG is supposed to be! I took a deep breath, relaxed and drank a homebrew (provided by friends), and decided to just wait a few days to see what the gravity reads at.

So 12 hours later fermentation is going crazy, the air lock was going pretty insane, and I was happy that I was able to see that my beer was going through fermentation. Well fast forward to Sunday night and uh oh, air lock isn't showing any activity. Another slight freak out and then I did some searching on HomeBrewTalk.com, and found that Revvy (he seems like a pretty popular guy around here) replied to someones post to remind them that an air lock is just a tool for keeping out air, and NOT a tool for measuring fermentation. So that helped calm me down. Thanks Revvy!

So today I took my first gravity reading since the original reading and it came up at 1.021. Well I hate to say this, but I forgot to measure the temperature to be sure my hydrometer was accurate, doh! But my house has been a fairly constant temperature of 72* so I think the reading should only be a maybe .001 - .004 off. But either way, the 1.021 reading made me very happy. It showed that it was working towards the 1.016 - 1.018 final gravity reading.

Now my question is this, the instructions say to rack it secondary as soon as fermentation slows down. So should I take more reading the next few days? Or should I maybe wait till 7 days after the initial brewing? I was thinking I should wait 7 days then take 2-3 readings and if it shows that fermentation is slowing down then I'll rack it to secondary. I just figured I'd ask before I do anything stupid, like say racking to secondary on the third of fourth day.

 

[DWavs]

Let it sit in the primary for 3-4 weeks...rack it to the bottling bucket...and bottle your brew. :rockin:

 

[browncoat]

Secondary fermentation isn't fermentation. Technically it's called a bright tank to allow suspended particulate matter to settle out thereby clearing the beer. Some would say it is essential others say its unnecessary. If you are going to secondary, make sure it us fermented fully by getting the same hydro readings several days in a row.

I usually use a secondary to free up my primary and I don't always know when I am going to get the chance to bottle or keg.

 

[bmcwood]

Congrats on your first beer, that's awesome I usually leave my beers in primary for 2 weeks. I like to make sure my final gravity stays constant, or close to it, for at least 3 days. By giving the yeast a few more days in primary, it gives them time to clean up after themselves and then settle to the bottom. Also within those 2 weeks I cold crash for about 2 days before racking to the keg.

 

[ACbrewer]

Now my question is this, the instructions say to rack it secondary as soon as fermentation slows down. So should I take more reading the next few days? Or should I maybe wait till 7 days after the initial brewing? I was thinking I should wait 7 days then take 2-3 readings and if it shows that fermentation is slowing down then I'll rack it to secondary. I just figured I'd ask before I do anything stupid, like say racking to secondary on the third of fourth day.

This will inevitably cause a 'to secondary or not'. debate.

To which I say - let's leave that arguemnt aside. The proper way to get 'is fermentation finished' by hydrometer reading is to take a reading, one each day until you get the same reading for 2 or 3 days in a row.

This can be useful and fun the first few beers, but after a while, you will get the hang of how long your typical beer takes to completed active fermentation. After active ferment completes - usually about 4 to 7 days in a ale (60 to 70F temps) the yeast usually does clean up of by products. Now this is often the time that people rack to a secondary. Since I'm leaving out the debate, I'll just say that you want to leave it all along until at least 2 weeks probably 4 have passed. The quality of the beer is usually better by waiting. Although if you have friends who helped and are experienced, they should be able to held you here.

 

[Unibrow]

Congrats on the beer!

Don't worry about the high OG reading - you probably didn't mix the wort and top off water well enough, but that's not a problem cause the fermentation will mix it up for you. You also can wait about 2 weeks before taking another sample. Your gravity is falling, and that's a good thing.

It's good that you're concerned, but try and have a little patience, it will make all the difference in the long run!