Boags premium first batch

[Benny bb]

Hi all,

I have just completed my first batch of beer in a kit I set up myself. (Little help from the local brewer store) I have bottled all of 21 litres of a boags premium pack (black rock lager) with converter pack. It seems to be ok. I have used Fresh rain water which I boiled.
My starting sg was at about 1.066 which I measured at about 8.6% (which seemed a bit high. So my question is just to see if I am on track. I finished with an sg 1.014 even though instructed to 1.012.
I didn't want the alcohol content to get any higher?? So I immediately bottled at 1.014 and have used the standard scoop for a 330 ml. Bottle in 375ml stubbies for raw and caster sugar.
Fermenting temp was between 16-20degrees the whole way and I stored in a fridge in the garage for even temp.
The beer was just finished fermenting when I poured.

Any suggestions??

[barls]

Mate always wait till its finished fermenting as otherwise you risk bottle bombs.
Mate as for your alcohol %i get 6.9 abv working on your figures alone, not the 8.6 your calculating.
Also it will only make the amount of alcohol that the fermentables you have provided

[Oliver]

+1. And to expand, don't bottle when the expected final gravity is reached, otherwise the beer will keep fermenting if there's still sugar to be had and the result will be exploding bottles. Bottle when the gravity is constant over two (some would say three) consecutive days. The estimated final gravity is only a guide.

What was in the kit? If it was the tin and a kilo of fermentables (dextrose, malt extract, etc) then 1.066 sounds too high, even in 21 litres. Perhaps you can clarify what went into the beer. It is possible that your hydrometer is out, that taking a sample when it was warm or not mixing thoroughly before taking the reading put the SG out. Or a combination.

Sounds like your temperature control was reasonable, so the end result should be OK, barring bottle bombs

And welcome to the forum and to homebrewing!

Cheers,

Oliver

[Benny bb]

Thanks blokes,

Yeah sorry sg 8.6 was the first og. 6.9 about right. A bit high which was why I bottled but it seems I may have tested the og in warm water after boiling the hops and dex. Still the flavour has tasted good. Seemed to taste better when there was a third left while bottling. I dont think I have over carbonared as am using 375ml but my 2 litre coke bottle is looking a little pressurised
Ingredients were as above and strained the hops

[weizgei]

Benny, if your ingredients were nothing more than a can of Black Rock Lager, and a 1kg bag of "converter", then there's no way your OG would have been 1.066. It should have been around 1.039 at the most. To give you a practical example, if you added a can of Black Rock Lager to 21 litres of water, then you'd need to add a whopping 2.5kg of dextrose into the mix to get 1.066. So as Oliver suggested, it's much more likely that you've mis-calculated your original gravity. Did you spin the hydrometer once in the sample tube? Have you put your hydrometer in room temp water to check if it reads 1.000?

I also share the guy's concern at bottle bombs...if, as I suspect, your OG was closer to 1.040, then bottling at 1.014 is probably jumping the gun...it's hard to tell without knowing what was in the 'converter', but I'm guessing it'll be something like 500gm light dry malt, 250gm each of dextrose and maltodextrin. If that's the case, your beer should have gone from 1.040 to 1.012 as the instructions suggested. So bottling at 1.014 could be a bit dangerous. Handle your stubbies carefully, and if they don't explode, expect them to be mightily carbonated when you do open them. Maybe open your first one (wear gardening gloves and maybe even eye protection) after 3 days in the bottle...if it's fully carbonated, carefully put all of them in the fridge to stop any further fermentation/carbonation.

[Benny bb]

Hi,

HAHA,will get the PPE out, thanks guys. Most of my brews are in stubbies so will test the strength of the bottle capping
Weizgei, Thanks, the ingredients are as you stated, so I will put a few samples in the fridge carefully and see what happens.
They are already stored in a polystyrene box in the laundry which is keeping them quite cool, so will leave some in there to see what happens.
I dont think my hydrometer is out because my first test was done in very warm water which from previous post is hopefully the case. I will test the Hydrometer tonight with cold water but it is new and has been working ok otherwise

[weizgei]

Yeah I was thinking about your hydro, it won't be out because it's measured a pretty accurate final gravity for your beer. If you told me your OG was 1066, and your FG was 1036, we'd know we've got a problem.

I'm thinking maybe it was a mixing issue. Think about your process for a minute...I had a problem with an early 'partial volume' extract batch before where I did a 10 litre boil with just enough LME at the start to give me a 1040 boil gravity. Then a few mins before the end of my boil, I added all the rest of my LME. This jumped the gravity up really high of course, as enough fermentables for a 20 odd litre batch are concentrated into around 8 litres of boiled wort. I then cooled that wort, and poured it into my fermenter, before adding my top up water.

Once at the desired volume, I took a sample through the tap into my hydro tube, and found the reading to be way higher than expected, a good 30 points or so higher. Then I realised that I hadn't manually mixed my wort after the water top up, so the higher density boiled wort was sitting at the bottom (and coming through the tap for my sample), whereas the lower density top up water was perched on top. So I gave it an arm-numbing thrashing with my sanitised mash paddle, took a new sample, and sure enough I got the OG number I was expecting. It's curious because adding 12-13 litres of top up water makes the wort look mixed, but it definitely isn't until you do it yourself.

Any chance that might have happened with this brew?

[Benny bb]

Yes Definitely.
I did the SG almost as I poured it in the fermenter. I gave it a good stir (wasnt sure whether to or not) so no probs there but not till after I did the OG.
Also, I followed the instructions to boil ME and Dex with hops in only about 2-4 litres and boiled for about the 10 -15mins.
Anyway, there was about a third of beer left in the bottom the next day (didnt have enough bottles) and thought it might be stale but I poured it anyway because it tasted great. So hoping the last ten or so bottles will be less pressurised

[barls]

Temp will also affect your sg reading. You need to allow for this