Oh my god I made beer! And I have a q :)

[msarro]

Hey everyone. I finally got a chance to take a hydrometer reading of the oatmeal stout I have in my girlfriends closet. I've been super paranoid because the bubbling of my airlock was never as vigorous as they show in some of the videos. A few of you reminded me bubbling isn't the same as fermentation nor should it be the sole indicator. I think you were right!

Anyways, I sanitized my flask and grabbed a sample. The hydro reading says it's at 1.021. Potential alcohol of about 3 and change percent? Does that sound about right? I know without the recipe you guys can't help too much but maybe you have a rough idea of where it should be. Its getting bottled next week so we'll see how it turns out. Its not as dark as most stouts I have seen, but I think thats because I didn't have the water hot enough when I mashed the grains (no thermometer, next purchase!).

Anyways, I tasted it afterwards and it is amazing. I can't wait to try it after it's been bottle conditioned. I took the forums' advice and let it sit for three weeks now so I'm wondering if that's helping to give it a bit more of a mellow sweetness (not contam sweetness, just yummy sweetness).
Thanks everyone!

 

[jonmohno]

I see a lot of posts about stouts at 1.02. Did you have a kit with a finished reading for it and what was the temp during ferment- did the temps go below the yeasts range?
Ive been rousing the yeast and raising the temp some the last week to get it to finish more if it has more to finish instead of taking a hydro reading.
Im at 2 weeks with my oatmeal stout and am kind of curious to take a reading after seeing posts about high FG's. Im pretty confident its good because i noticed it fermented twice as long as my regular ales and to me its a sign of a pretty thourough attenuation. but ill probably check the gravity anyway.maybe.Or just do what ive been doing, rousing the yeast the last week.

 

[msarro]

I did have a kit with a finished reading for it, but all of the recipe info is sitting on my desk about 50 miles away so I figured I'd just pick your brains

I hope your brew goes well! I *think* I remember the homebrew store telling me that it would finish around 1.020-1.022 so here's hoping I remember correctly. Good luck!

 

[Captain Damage]

First off, ignore the "Potential alcohol" scale on your hydrometer. It doesn't work for beer.

I recently had a stout that stuck at 1.020. I tried lots of things to rouse the yeast - gentle shaking, transfered to 2ndary (sometimes that restarts fermentation), even added a little corn sugar which fermented out, but still the stout was stuck at 1.020. The one thing I didn't try, which I will next time this happens is repitching with fresh yeast. So that may be what you need to do.

On the bright side, my stout tastes great! It's a little over 3% alcohol. Rich roasted grain flavor, a good session beer. So if your beer stays stuck at 22, the good news is you'll still have beer!