HELP! Brew has high gravity after 2 weeks fermenting

[snowman]

Greetings Brewers,

I have recently started brewing and have just bottled my second brew. My first brew truned out pretty good however I have concerns about the second.

My second brew (Coopers Cervasa with Brew Enhancer 2) was brewed for 2 weeks at about 24-27c. Assuming that was long enough I decided to bottle however the gravity was about 1.025, I was unsure whether I was actually supposed to measure the gravity before or after bottling so I bottled it with using carbonation drops. I tasted the beer that I had measured in the hydrometer and it seemed ok although quite flat.

I am concered that the beer will remain flat and low in alcohol content, is there anything I can do to fix this?

Cheers

[Beerpig]

What type of bottles did you use?

[snowman]

Coopers PET.

[Beerpig]

Just feel the bottles after a couple of weeks

If they have gone rock hard, they are carbonated

Next step, get some in the fridge, wait till chilled, put your feet up & enjoy

I'm drinking one of these at the moment, great for hot weather

Cheers

[snowman]

Thanks!

You don't think the reading I got of 1.025 is a problem?

I have high hopes for this brew, love the Corona style.

Cheers

[Beerpig]

A bit high, did you spin the hydrometer to make sure no bubbles were clinging to the outside?

Luckily they are in PET & if you have bottled too early you won't get any bombs. But maybe a shock when you open them!

Cheers

[snowman]

Thanks again, especially for replying so quickly.

On with the brewing!

[mark68]

Try racking the brew off into another fermenter,this sometimes drops the gravity quite a few points.

[Paleman]

You say that you brewed for two weeks at 24 - 27 degs. If so you should have a much lower FG than 1.024. Thats high, even for a BE #2.

Im guessing you misjudged your reading. If not, and it was that high, i have concerns that you will have an over carbonated beer on your hands. But i cant see it at two weeks and high temperatures. It shouldve been brewed out after 7 days at those temps.

[Cat]

I have a similar problem - although my brew hasn't been sitting there for 2 weeks (more like 6 days), it's been at 1025 for the past 2 days. According to Brewcraft tho, it might because I had a malt extract, because I used one of their wheat converter kits. Apparently, some things don't ferment properly.

However... does that mean that I have a beer with low alc. content? Why would you use a kit enhancer/converter if your alcohol content was going to be affected so majorly? My brew is sitting at 2.5%, which seems pretty weak... Any tips?

Edit: I just did a reading of water in the tube, after rinsing out the tube of beer and refilling it with tap water, just to test a theory... it came out at 1006!

Am I just reading it wrong? Or do I have a dodgy hydrometer? (Note, the hydrometer I'm currently using to measure the gravity is different to the one I originally used - my sister broke that one, so I had to dash out to Brewcraft to buy another)

[InCider]

I may be dodgy, but I haven't measured the gravity since my first brew - If I'm unsure or it's been cooler (SE Qld winter) I may leave it two weeks in the fermenter. I found I didn't need to measure the alc content as I could work out with research if it was 3.5/4.2/5.0 approx. I read Olivers tips for a new brewer and have given caution a mighty kick to the wind.

And I found out I was only using detergent for sanitising!

Cheers,

InCider.

[chris.]

Edit: I just did a reading of water in the tube, after rinsing out the tube of beer and refilling it with tap water, just to test a theory... it came out at 1006!

Am I just reading it wrong? Or do I have a dodgy hydrometer? (Note, the hydrometer I'm currently using to measure the gravity is different to the one I originally used - my sister broke that one, so I had to dash out to Brewcraft to buy another)

Could be an out of whack Hydrometer.

What was the temperature of the tap water? & do you know what temperature your hydro is calibrated at? should say it on the instructions you received with it.
Most are calibrated at 20c and should read around 0.000 at said temperature.
FWIW I found most cheaper hydrometer's to be inaccurate.

[Cat]

It was an $18 hydrometer from Brewcraft - pretty standard one.

Now that I think about it, my tap water is colder than the beer, so it probably comes out at 15 degrees or something. That'd be enough to throw it a bit out of whack, so yeah, guess it's just low alc beer for me. Sadness

[Oliver]

What was the temperature of the tap water? & do you know what temperature your hydro is calibrated at? should say it on the instructions you received with it.
Most are calibrated at 20c and should read around 0.000 at said temperature.
FWIW I found most cheaper hydrometer's to be inaccurate.

Just a small correction, that should be 1.000, not 0.000.

I think you can safely assume your hydrometer should read 1.000 at 20C.

Do a search on the word calibrate and you'll find a table for correction of hydrometers at various temperatures.

Cheers,

Oliver

[JubJub]

While on the subject of hygrometer checking.

Just to check you hygrometer (however it is spelt) did you use distilled water for checking your hygro? Would I be correct in saying that if you have a lot of dissolved minerals in the water your hygro will float higher?

If your going to take it back and say its dodgey, at least you can tell them about your lab practice.

[Oliver]

JubJub,

Tap water will probably make a difference to the reading as compared with distilled water, but I doubt that would account for the huge difference Cat is experiencing.

Here's the link to the correction table:

http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/vi ... .php?t=574

(Turns out a search for the word "calibration" wouldn't have turned up the table. Sorry for the bum steer.)

Cheers,

Oliver

[snowman]

After about 3 weeks of waiting I finally cracked a couple of the brews.

It is by far the best brew I have done so far! (Out of 3)

The only thing I found was that it was definately heavier in body than a normal cereza. I am gonna put another down tonight and was thinking about using half of the BE2 and maybe adding 300g of dex. Any suggestions???

[TommyH]

Hi Snowman.
You could try using a BE1 instead. I believe this has a bit less malt in it and more dex. Could also add some cascade hops to it for a bit more "citrus"

[snowman]

I will give the cascade hops a go. One of my mates used BE1 and it came out a bit too sweet.

[TommyH]

No problem snowman.
Let us know how it goes.