Hydrometre readings

[brian862107]

Hi I'm new to home brewing and just started my first 5 gallon batch on Sunday. My hydrometer reading before fermentation was 1.03. Is this good or bad? My beer looks to be fermenting well at right temperature as airlock is bubbling away . How do I make my brew more alcoholic? I'm aiming for about 4 to 5% if possible?

 

[dr0ker]

What was the recipe? What temperature was the wort when you took the hydrometer reading?

 

[brian862107]

I'm not 100% as was a gift but its a lager malt extract that I added 1 kg of dextrose to. It was about 26 degrees when we took the hydrometer reading just before we pitched the yeast

 

[jeffjm]

Whether 1.030 is good our bad depends on your ingredients. In general - the more fermentable sugars (i.e. extract) you add, the more alcohol you get - assuming you managed your yeast properly, which is a whole different discussion. Poorly treated or not enough yeast lead to not getting as much alcohol as you'd expect.

Off the top of my head, I'd guess 3% might be a reasonable expectation. That depends on yeast strain, pitching rate, and oxygen, so it's difficult to say with any certainty.

 

[brian862107]

Cool I'd be happy with 3% on 1st batch if I get it. If I want 5% on the next 1 how do you recommend I do this, add more dextrose? Use a different malt extract? Add more stuff like adjunct?

 

[jeffjm]

Your best bet is to use some kind of brewing software. Beersmith, hopville, brewers friend, and ibrewmaster are all supposed to be good. Any of them should be able to predict ABV for a given recipe.

If I wanted to increase ABV from 3 to 5 in my next batch, I'd add more extract. There's not much benefit in adding simple sugars to that light a beer.

 

[replacement]

Did you add water to bring to full volume after the boil? If so it's possible the hydro reading was off due to incomplete mixing... on my second batch i thought I royally f'd up when the reading was 30pts low, I had shaken it some and thought it was adequately mixed with top off water but found it was not. Now I'll only take a sample after shaking the bucket for 5+ mins to aerate.

 

[C-Rider]

I'm not 100% as was a gift but its a lager malt extract that I added 1 kg of dextrose to. It was about 26 degrees when we took the hydrometer reading just before we pitched the yeast

pretty hard to get a low SG w/an extract kit. Just figure it's what ever the seller said it would be. You just didn't mix the top off water well, not that it will hurt the resulting beer.

Relax and have a cold one.

 

[brian862107]

Did you add water to bring to full volume after the boil? If so it's possible the hydro reading was off due to incomplete mixing... on my second batch i thought I royally f'd up when the reading was 30pts low, I had shaken it some and thought it was adequately mixed with top off water but found it was not. Now I'll only take a sample after shaking the bucket for 5+ mins to aerate.

I did add 4 gallons to the wort after cooling the wort from a boil. I think it was properly aerated though as I had two buckets (one has spigot) and mixed it from 1 to other and done this twice before then leaving it about 5 mins and taking reading then pitching yeast.

 

[brian862107]

Your best bet is to use some kind of brewing software. Beersmith, hopville, brewers friend, and ibrewmaster are all supposed to be good. Any of them should be able to predict ABV for a given recipe.

If I wanted to increase ABV from 3 to 5 in my next batch, I'd add more extract. There's not much benefit in adding simple sugars to that light a beer.

Thanks man I think I'll try beer smith as its free see how that goes. In the meantime ill check this batch out. Got bottling to do for first time too but should be easy with spigot. My siphon doesn't fit round spigot though but spigots perfect size for the bottles direct. I do have a bottling tube though - do you know if I can get a tube that will fit spigot on 1 end and bottling tube the other end?

 

[jeffjm]

That's what I use to connect my bottling wand to the spigot...tubing from Home Depot.