trouble with this specific gravity business

[goforevercrazywithit]

First time brewing so I've been blowing up this fourm with all kinds of questions. So, here's another...

Brewing a belgian witbier that had an original gravity of 1.052
Today, just over a week later, racked it and it has a specific gravity of 1.014

What should this tell me about my brew so far, had I more brewing expereince? My recipie kit, yeast, nothing tells me what specific gravity I should be shooting for. Very confused

 

[zakleeright]

looks like you and your yeast have done a good job. The yeast have converted the sugars to alcohol. You've gone all the way from 1.052 to 1.014, nice.
Most beers will get down to between 1.010 and 1.016. Big beers might be significantly higher FG, a Saison might need to get a little lower, but 1.014 is pretty good.

If you'll be too busy during the week, rack it to secondary, or keg/bottle it, whatever you intend to do next, and you'd be good.
If you want to be more careful/scientific about things, take a reading for another two days. If its still 1.014, that's as far as its going to go. If it drops down to 1.012, it probably won't go much lower...secondary, keg, or bottle as you intend.

Hope this helps!

 

[scottab]

First time brewing so I've been blowing up this fourm with all kinds of questions. So, here's another...

Brewing a belgian witbier that had an original gravity of 1.052
Today, just over a week later, racked it and it has a specific gravity of 1.014

What should this tell me about my brew so far, had I more brewing expereince? My recipie kit, yeast, nothing tells me what specific gravity I should be shooting for. Very confused

If you plug the numbers into a brewing calculator for alcohol attenuation you will find you have about 5% alcohol; abv=(og-fg)*131.25

http://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/

 

[1Mainebrew]

A lot of it has to do with expected attenuation of the yeast you used. 75% is average. Attenuation is the percentage of the available sugars that the yeast eats. See the packaging for the expected attenuation.

If your gravity remains the same for a few days it is ready for bottling or kegging.