I brewed 2 days in a row before leaving for Europe. One day after getting back, I wasted no time getting another kit and trying another one. These kits are expensive but it’s helping my comfort level and I still haven’t gotten around to picking up the supplies for an all-grain brew.
When I brewed the first two beers, a Double IPA and Hefeweizen, I didn’t have a hydrometer so I never took an original gravity. So, taking a final gravity couldn’t help because I had no baseline. It’s hard to tell if fermentation was done when I kegged my beer but it’s been sitting for 3 weeks in the fermenters and both were pretty low ABV beers. I’m taking my chances.
That was the Double IPA I was kegging. It is darker than I had hoped but smells and tastes really amazing. Since my kegerator doesn’t arrive until Saturday, I put a bit of priming sugar in there to start the carbonation process and I was lucky to get a good seal and all of the O2 has been expelled from the keg which is good.
The kegs are currently sitting in my bedroom looking all pretty filled with beer.
The same night, I decided to undertake a big beer. I brewed a Russian Imperial stout with Cocoa added. Expected gravity was 1.075 – 1.08 and I ended up with 1.084. I believe this is because the recipe didn’t call for the cocoa and that elevated things a bit.
So, that’s brewed and fermenting in the carboy. It’s been 36 hours and the krausen is looking great almost hitting the top of the carboy and I went ahead and installed a blow-off tube at the start to account for any problems. Smaller carboy + big batches = blowoff tube every time according to my friend David.
The Imperial Stout I expect to take 4 weeks to finish but I don’t know for sure. It’s a big beer so the yeast may have to work extra to get to it. I hope to have a final product of 11% when all is done. Here are some photos of the fermentation.
I am getting a 2nd hand kegerator from a guy locally. It’s a full-size fridge with room for 4 homebrew kegs but it only currently has 2 taps. $400 gets me the entire setup + 10 gallon CO2 tank + cleaning system and a home brew keg. I’ll be able to add two more taps if I want which I’ll probably just use for carbing the beer, not really always having 4 on tap, For sure, I’ll get some photos once that is up.
For what it’s worth, that OG won’t get you to 11%. Maybe 8.5-9% max. Just so you aren’t startled when taking SG measurements down the road.
Thanks Matt! I am hearing so many conflicts not around the OG but around the ingredients and what’s added and such but I haven’t found a reliable scale of max ABV you could theoretically achieve based on the OG.
Hey Adam ,.. the BB kit states it should be around an 8% beer anyways so no worries. Another thought,if you have another carboy you could siphon that over and let it bulk age for another month or 6. Then bottle or keg and let it condition for a while. You were not in a hurry to drink this beer were you LOL. I did the BB milk stout and added some cocoa hulls to it. It has been in the bottle for 3 months now and is wonderful.
As for the potential alcohol on your hydrometer (assuming you have one) From my understanding the potention reading is merely by the amount of sugar in the liquid that can be converted to alcohol and to achieve that “potential” alcohol reading you would have to ferment all the way down to 1.000. Which is not going to happen as they Brewers Best is expecting a FG reading of 1.017-1.020 mainly because the yeast strain will not live in that high of an alcoholic environment. Some people use champagne/wine yeast to finish a beer and get the FG lower but I would not do that on that beer. on a side note I have heard of some wines/meads being fermented below 1.000.
Your OG may have been a little high as your final volume may have been shy of a full 5 gallons. Something to remember. If you do like most of us we run out the the store and get 5 gallons of spring water, head homepop the top on a cold one (it is illegal to brew without a beer ya know (at least over my brew pot it is LOL) then start getting ready. When we are done with the boil lets say it was 2.5 gallons for 60 minutes we no doubt had some evaporation. If you have a pot with a wide opening your boil OFF will be more. So all the steam that goes away is now gone and what was 2.5 gallons of water is now 2.3 – 2.4 gallons of wort. Then we add the other 2.5 gallons of top off water and that gives us 4.8- 4.9 gallons of wort. Hence the higher OG. Still no worries just try to let it sit for a while and check the readings later on. I let all of my beers ferment for *at least* 2 weeks minimum.
Patience young warrior. Remember the saying .. Relax, Don’t Worry, Have a Homebrew.
Read both of your comments. These are awesome! Thanks for the tips. The beers I did make actually came out alright. They’re all pretty drinkable and my friends like them.