Gravity question??

[shok]

Did I do something wrong here?

First off, I forgot to take an initial specific gravity.
But I took one 24hrs into the primary. It read 1.028

It stopped bubbling 4 days in so today (8 days in primary) I decided to rack it into a secondary.
The beer (amber ale) has a great color and smells awesome.
I took another specific gravity ready and it shows 1.013

Does this seem right? If I plug those 2 numbers into a calculator I get a very low alcohol reading.
I suppose not taking an initial reading is throwing me off maybe?

 

[McKBrew]

Was is fermenting when you took the first reading at 1.028? If so, no problems. You are right, not having an initial reading is not going to give you a correct indication of ABV.

 

[shok]

yes it was bubbling already

 

[Rick_R]

I suppose not taking an initial reading is throwing me off maybe

Yep. If it's extract, then you will be pretty close to the original gravity just using calculations from the fermentables.

Rick

 

[david_42]

If the recipe didn't give you a target gravity, just plug the numbers into this:
http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator