Low SG

[cyclonebeer]

Brewed my first batch last weekend. An English Pale Ale kit. Fermented strongly for about 24 hrs., and bubbling dramatically subsided. Racked to secondary after 4 days. Took my first hydrometer reading today and it was 1.008. I'm wondering if my final product is closer to root beer than real beer.

Potential error could be when I put product into primary, I only added water to fill pail to 5 gal mark. When I racked to secondary, I lost my siphon near the end of the transfer, and added about 3/4 gal water to fill carboy to neck. Did I dilute way too much?

 

[Parker36]

Ya, you shouldn't have topped up in secondary. You will always lose some volume because of the trub on the bottom. A lot of people will make their recipes for a 5.5 gallon batch to make sure they have 5 gallons at the end. That being said, there is no reason why you need to have exactly 5 gallons every time

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f14/exactly-5-gallons-obsession-83913/

 

[Sager Brewing Co.]

The 1.008 is your FG(Final Gravity) if you measured it after the fermentation. SG(Starting Gravity, or Specific Gravity) is what the reading would be before fermentation. Did you take a SG reading? If so subtract the FG from the SG and multiply by 131 to get your abv. The beer is probably fine and ready to bottle, But:

The real question here is did you boil then cool that 3/4 gallon of water that you added to the secondary to prevent infection?

 

[cyclonebeer]

As I said in my original post, I took my first hydrometer reading one week into the process. I titled the post "Low SG" figuring that would be more descriptive than just saying "help".

Add water was bottled spring water free of chlorine, fluoride, etc... and was not boiled. Along the same line, my initial boil was 1 1/2 gal to which was added 3 1/2 gal of chilled (bottled) water to bring the wort temp down to 70 deg. The 3 1/2 gal was not boiled prior to chilling and fermentation proceeded just fine. I don't think I have an infected brew, but I guess I really don't know. My concern was that since my specific gravity reading was much lower that the anticipated range for a final reading, that I might end up with some sort of a non-adult beverage.

 

[Nurmey]

My concern was that since my specific gravity reading was much lower that the anticipated range for a final reading, that I might end up with some sort of a non-adult beverage.

The lower reading means more alcohol, not less. 1.008 is fairly low for a beer.