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I just bottled a brew of Black Rock Dry Lager on Sunday and the FG reading was 1.000. I've never seen one so low. The OG was only 1.033, so i estimate that the brew will be about 4.4%. It just spun me out that the FG was 1 even.

Has anyone had a reading so low or should I be worried that I just bottled 2 slabs of coloured water

I had one once was .999.
This may have been a miss read, it was a Bavarian Lager, with 1kg of Dextrose, I let it brew right down. Was very light body, but way too easy to knock back a few. It had a kick like a mule.

Greg.

I can't for the life of me imagine that all the sugars would have fermented out of the initial wort (unless you used yeast and dextrose alone ). The lowest I ever got was 1.010 but I've never brewed without adding other fermentables to the can kit.

It's more likely that your hydrometer reading was wrong...maybe because you didn't correct the temp of the beer before dropping the hydrometer in or maybe because of foam around the gradings making it hard to read.

I always discard the first tube of beer I pour out of the fermenter and test the second pouring. Don't know whether this would help.

It should be right though.

Cheers,
Jay.

Sean,

Is there a hole in your hydrometer? Not a joke, take a look. Test it against water if you would. I am thinking one of two things, there is additional "weight" if you will which is the hole issue or the paper tube slipped. If the tube slipped then you just need to re-calibrate it.

Dogger

Jay
I waited a moment for the foam to subside before taking the reading and the reading was the same two days in a row.

I use a glass fermenter which requires siphoning from the top, so there is little risk of draining any yeast cake into the testing tube. The brew was pretty simple though, just a 1kg dextrose, malt & corn syrup mix, some added finishing hops and the 3gms of dry enzymes that came with the tin.

Dogger
I don't think there would be a hole in the hydrometer but i'll definately try it out tonight. Also I thought the makings were painted on, didn't realise that it was a paper inside. Do you recalibrate by comparing against the reading it gives for water

Anyway thanks for you help guys

gregb wrote:I had one once was .999.
This may have been a miss read, it was a Bavarian Lager, with 1kg of Dextrose, I let it brew right down. Was very light body, but way too easy to knock back a few. It had a kick like a mule.

Greg.

What Bavarian was the one you used Greg? And you just used a straight Dextrose? No other addatives? I like the idea of a very light bodied beer for summer drinking (and it could interest my girlfriend as well). Did you do anything special to brew it right down? Do you think adding some extra hops would have improved it?

Cheers in advace,
Conrad

Sean Patterson wrote:Jay
I use a glass fermenter which requires siphoning from the top, so there is little risk of draining any yeast cake into the testing tube. The brew was pretty simple though, just a 1kg dextrose, malt & corn syrup mix, some added finishing hops and the 3gms of dry enzymes that came with the tin.

dry enzyme lowers the FG of your to around 1000.. sometimes even lower.. i try to avoid it.

What is and what is the purpose of this dry enzyme?
I've only made 1 black rock kit and left it out after someone on here warned me not to use it (sorry, no time to check back who it was).

Conrad,

It was the Coopers Int'l Series Bavarian lager. Brewed in a cool spring time, let it brew right out and a 1kg bag of Dextrose. Kit and Kilo Job.

Only thing I'd do different would be to maybe ease up the dex, it carried a powerful kick.

Greg.

I believe the purpose of the enzyme is to allow all the sugar to ferment out leaving a totally dry (i.e. no residual sweetness). Asahi super dry, carlton premium dry, tooheys extra dry all use something similar.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Marty

Marty,

You are correct sir,

It eats away at the residual undermentables and changes them into a fermentable sugar.

I still would find that very low fo a brew mind you.

As far as calibrating goes, against distilled at 60 deg F the SG should be 1000. Mark that off, then everything will be in spec as it is already graduated.

Dogger

One thing we should remember is that a reading of 1.000 does not mean that all the sugar has fermented out.

It just means that the density of the liquid is the same as water.

Because alcohol is lighter than water and sugar is heavier, a combination of these could result in your beer being 1.000. (As a simple example, assume that alcohol has an SG of 0.900 and you have a sugar solution with an SG of 1.100. If you mix equal quantities of each you'd get a liquid that's got an SG of 1.000. I think )

Wine, for instance, generally has an FG of less than 1.000, I believe.

(In beer, the enzyme certainly helped get to 1.000.)

Oliver

Oliver,

Denser, buddy it is denser not heavier

For all intents and purposes, your explanation will work for calculating SG. You should actually do a mass balance on solids then recalculate the SG, but hey, whatever

Dogger

Oliver wrote:It just means that the density of the liquid is the same as water.

DD,

At least I got it right the first time!

Oliver

Oliver,

I had a teacher that would slap your hands with a ruler everytime you dicked that up. It amazed me how many people didn't get it. I am just doing it in fun, reliving my childhood I guess, he was doing it out of spite




Dogger

hehe, the beauties of being a teacher