Question about fermintation

[ocguy106]

Hey all quick question about fermintation. I have just started brewing and have been doing mostly kits. I have made about 10 batches thus far and in the past haven't really checked my SG since these were kits and I figured all of that had pretty much been figured out for me. I usally just let the it ferment for a week or so and then keg. This has worked really well and produced very good tasting beer but I never really know my ABV. For my current batch I finaly bought a Brix/SG meter.

The current batch is a Fat Tire clone that I have made in the past. On brew day my SG was 1.056 as expected and the ending SG is supposed to be 1.014
It has been a week and I am currently at 1.030.

Do I just let it sit longer or pitch more yeast? any help would be great. Also this is a 5 gallon batch in a bucket at 68 deg.

Thank You
Ken

 

[pabloj13]

Hey all quick question about fermintation. I have just started brewing and have been doing mostly kits. I have made about 10 batches thus far and in the past haven't really checked my SG since these were kits and I figured all of that had pretty much been figured out for me. I usally just let the it ferment for a week or so and then keg. This has worked really well and produced very good tasting beer but I never really know my ABV. For my current batch I finaly bought a Brix/SG meter.

The current batch is a Fat Tire clone that I have made in the past. On brew day my SG was 1.056 as expected and the ending SG is supposed to be 1.014
It has been a week and I am currently at 1.030.

Do I just let it sit longer or pitch more yeast? any help would be great. Also this is a 5 gallon batch in a bucket at 68 deg.

Thank You
Ken

Are you talking about a refractometer? If so, you have to correct for the alcohol present in the solution.

 

[ocguy106]

yes I am using a refractometer. Not sure what you mean as to correct for the alcohol present in the solution. I was under the impression that I just take the SG reading with the refractometer and that is it. For what it is worth the refractometer I have automatically corrects for temp other then that not sure what to do.

Ken

 

[duboman]

A refractometer measures sugar content so once the wort becomes beer, there is a brix calculation that needs to be made since the sugars have been converted to alcohol.

I don't use one so if you have a hydrometer use that, otherwise do a search for the adjustment calculation you need, sorry I can't provide that

 

[ocguy106]

I will do some searching. My refractometer has both scales on the left is Brix and on the right SG

 

[pabloj13]

I will do some searching. My refractometer has both scales on the left is Brix and on the right SG

Those scales are both for measuring specific gravity in the absence of alcohol.

 

[ResumeMan]

Alcohol in the liquid throws off the refractometer's measurement. Once the beer has started fermenting, a reading with a refractometer does not provide immediately meaningful information.

What you can do is plug the numbers into a spreadsheet that correlates the original gravity and the refractometer reading to estimate the actual specific gravity. Morebeer has one on their website. I haven't used it (actually I don't even own a refractometer) so I can't vouch for its calculations, but it'll probably be better than just using whatever the refratometer reads, since that's definitely incorrect.

The other approach would be to buy a hydrometer and use that...

 

[ocguy106]

Thank you all very much....using that table it looks like my ending gravity is 1.015. I was shooting for 1.014 so looks like I hit right on.

Thanks again to all
Ken

 

[pabloj13]

Thank you all very much....using that table it looks like my ending gravity is 1.015. I was shooting for 1.014 so looks like I hit right on.

Thanks again to all
Ken

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