Why does my beer have no alcohol?

[Lunarpancake]

There are a few reasons your brew may be watery and/or less alcoholic than it should be.


1) are you 100% sure you started with 5 gallons of brew in primary?

2) are you letting the wort cool sufficiently before pitching your yeast?

3) are you letting the brew ferment for ~ a month?

4) are you sure you have been adding all of the fermentables to your wort?

 

[calbrew]

How long are you letting your beer bottle condition? My extract brews start out a little watery, but after 4-5 weeks they have much better mouth feel/body. It sucks waiting, but maybe it just needs more time.

 

[FireNightFly]

When you took your gravity readings did you include the temp of the wort?

http://dd26943.com/davesdreaded/tools/convert.htm

 

[TheGeek]

A fun way to estimate (albeit completely unscientific) would be to get a sixer of a commerical beer similar in style and see how drunk you get. Then drink a sixer of your homebrew and compare inebriation levels

 

[mattd2]

A fun way to estimate (albeit completely unscientific) would be to get a sixer of a commerical beer similar in style and see how drunk you get. Then drink a sixer of your homebrew and compare inebriation levels

Make sure you leave at least a day between taking "readings" otherwise you will be left with the conclusion of "Damn my beer is strong"

 

[mattd2]

Also what kind of kit was it? an all malt extract or one that needed an extra kg of sugar? Once with one of those +kg sugar kits I nearly forgot the sugar and was wondering why the OG was 1.020, then I noticed the bag of sugar sitting next to the sample.

 

[Bacchus]

I must be a real stinkin' drunk because I've actually gotten to where I can tell the ABV of a beer (close, not exact) simply by comparing the buzz I have to how much I've consumed in "X" amount of time. LOL!!!

 

[BORIStheCrusher]

By reading the replies, doing some research and drinking a few I believe I know the problem. I never took an initial reading before adding the yeast and made the conversion to get an accurate reading. Over the past week I drank quite a bit of em, and after just a couple, I could tell there was alcohol in there lol.

 

[cheezydemon3]

With only one reading, I would have bet that you would have overestimated the abv, lol.

 

[Juan Velasquez]

Hi some one help me with my ABV % SG, and the FG

 

[ESBrewer]

2.6 - 2.7 % . A very low alcohol beer. See calculator here https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/. But thisonly holds if the gravities were measured at the calibration temperature of the hydrometer (usually 16-20 deg C). If the beer temperature during measurements was far away from that zone you need to compensate for the temperature (see .https://www.brewersfriend.com/hydrometer-temp/).

 

[Juan Velasquez]

What could happen in my brew that I have souch a low alcohol level. Help me!

 

[Rodent]

What could happen in my brew that I have souch a low alcohol level. Help me!

what temp was each measurement taken at?

Here's an easy to use calculator: http://www.davesdreaded.com/homebrew-calculator/

Increasing the OG (say to somewhere in the 1.050-1.065 range) and finishing at the same FG will definitely increase your ABV all things being equal

 

[RM-MN]

What could happen in my brew that I have souch a low alcohol level. Help me!

You'll have to help us a bit first. Tell us about your process that got you to that OG. Did you use an extract kit, a recipe that used extract (liquid or dry malt extract) or were you starting with only grains. If the latter, what grains did you use and how did you use them.

 

[S-Met]

What could happen in my brew that I have souch a low alcohol level. Help me!

1st, your phone is at 13%, probably time to put it on the charger.

2nd, way too many variables to determine what could have gone wrong. Start by telling us your recipe and boil process. What temperature did you ferment?

 

[Juan Velasquez]

Jajajaja, it was 20 Celsius both. It was a IPA. 5 gallons

 

[Lefou]

SG = 1.030
FG = 1.009
ABV = 2.76%
https://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/

Possible problem: Incomplete conversion.
If it was all grain, mash temps could've been inconsistent. Short mash times can result in an incomplete conversion. Increase mash time, get your temperatures steady, and make sure enough base malt is present.
If your beer was pure extract the wort might've been too dilute and not boiled long enough as well.
From the attenuation level, I'd say the yeast was OK and it finished properly.

 

[kh54s10]

Kit? Recipe? Extract? All grain? Attained proper volumes? Grain crush? Temperatures during brew and fermentation? Yeast prep? Times?

Most,maybe more, of these things will need to be known before any useful help can be given.

 

[Tombstone0]

If you made an extract batch with a partial boil, meaning that you added water after the boil, most likely it wasn’t mixed thoroughly and you starting gravity measurement is wrong.

If it’s an extract batch and your starting volume was correct it’s very unlikely that your starting gravity will be much different than the estimated starting gravity of the kit or recipe

 

[parjay]

Please just let us know where the sugar came from: extract or all grain?

 

[STMF]

I seem them as 1.030 and 1.010. That would give about 2.6% ABV.