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Howdy all
I've got a brewcraft kilkenny clone on the go, been in for over a week now. The Sg has been hovering arond 1012 ish for a few days now. There seems to be a fair few small bubbles in the testing tube when i look at it, and what seems to be a "head" of sorts aswell. There is no airlock activity at all.
My question is; has this brew finished? i suspect not becuase of the bubbles etc, but would appreciate a fellow homebrewers opinion on this.
Cheers guys.

Given there is a fair bit of body in Kilkenny I would say 1012 is probably OK to bottle.

1010 - 1014 is about right from my experience for more malty brews.

I second that. Go ahead and bottle.
If your SG is the same two days in a row, it's either time to bottle or you've missed your chance to rack.
- Krusty

You can still rack. I would- especially if you want to get your SG down a few points.

"brewing crafts", which is written by Mike Rodgers-Wilson who (I think) works (or worked) for Brewcraft has this exact Kilkenny recipe in it and says that the final specific gravity should be 1.012. Since you say it seems to have leveled out, it looks like it's time for bottling.

BTW, just because a lot of homebrew kits have a FG reading of 1.010 or thereabouts does NOT mean that all do. Specific Gravity is a measurement of density. Think about the variety of commercial beers out there with diferent densities; compare something light and watery like VB to something thick like Guiness. They have this feel partly because they have a different final gravity. Wouldn't we be missing out on something if all of our homebrews finished at 1.010?

And now a question from me: does anyone know what units specific gravity is in? I'd imaging it'd be something like grams per milliliter, but i've never seen it expressed with units. The homebrewer in me knows exactly what it means, but the scientist and engineer in me knows that a number without units is pretty useless on its own.

There are no units.

Specific gravity- better known as relative density, is a measure of density relative to the density of water.

Hence, the actual density of the wort will be divided by the density of water.

As the values are divided, the units (which are the same for both values) cancel out.

The original units were kg/m3, using SI units.

Thanks Chris.

So that would mean that a SG of say 1.010 would be 1% denser than water, so therefore 1.010g/mL?

Blandy,

That's always been my understanding. Of course, it could be and may well be wrong

Oliver