Hello! I am hoping you guys can give me some advice with my Smoked Porter Extract Kit from Brewer's Best. This is my first Brewer's Best kit, I have been using True Brew kits previously.
I brewed on 01/16, and pitched some White Labs WLP011 European Ale Yeast. (The best by date was 01/28.) After about 36 hours I finally saw some fermentation. It wasn't very much though, only about 1.5 inches of krausen. This lasted for around 24 hours and the foam was gone, with no blowoff tube activity.
On 01/20 I was worried the yeast had been no good so I pitched the dry English Ale Yeast that came with the kit. This produced nothing.
Today I took a gravity reading. (I did not take an OG reading...I have been ignoring my hydrometer up until now because my beer has been turning out well without reading it. Will be recording OG/FG from now on.) The gravity is 1.021 and the kit says the FG should be 1.014-1.017. I tasted the wort that I measured, and was not impressed. I have never tasted wort at this stage but it tasted very watery. No strange off-flavors, but not very rich like a porter should be.
At this point I have two questions.
Is this even worth finishing the time in primary and bottling? I know I messed up by not taking an OG reading, so I really can't know how much fermentation has actually happened. I'm considering dumping it.
What could I have done wrong? I have produced what I consider to be 2 delicious beers and one mediocre beer prior to this batch, and I would like to keep learning and improving my methods. I am not upset that this didn't turn out well, but I want to make sure I learn something from this batch.
Thanks! Any help is much appreciated.
I brewed on 01/16, and pitched some White Labs WLP011 European Ale Yeast. (The best by date was 01/28.) After about 36 hours I finally saw some fermentation. It wasn't very much though, only about 1.5 inches of krausen. This lasted for around 24 hours and the foam was gone, with no blowoff tube activity.
On 01/20 I was worried the yeast had been no good so I pitched the dry English Ale Yeast that came with the kit. This produced nothing.
Today I took a gravity reading. (I did not take an OG reading...I have been ignoring my hydrometer up until now because my beer has been turning out well without reading it. Will be recording OG/FG from now on.) The gravity is 1.021 and the kit says the FG should be 1.014-1.017. I tasted the wort that I measured, and was not impressed. I have never tasted wort at this stage but it tasted very watery. No strange off-flavors, but not very rich like a porter should be.
At this point I have two questions.
Is this even worth finishing the time in primary and bottling? I know I messed up by not taking an OG reading, so I really can't know how much fermentation has actually happened. I'm considering dumping it.
What could I have done wrong? I have produced what I consider to be 2 delicious beers and one mediocre beer prior to this batch, and I would like to keep learning and improving my methods. I am not upset that this didn't turn out well, but I want to make sure I learn something from this batch.
Thanks! Any help is much appreciated.