Newbie messed up first brew?

Hey folks,

First off, great forum. I've been reading a bunch of the posts, and while most of it confuses me, there's some awesome help here. I thought I might take advantage of that to see what you guys would recommend I do with my first brew.

I started Brewferm Old Bruin kit (link at the bottom in case it helps) 14 days ago. I think from what I've read on here I must have either messed up the sugar or the amount of water for the first fermentation. My guess is sugar. Kit says it's supposed to be 1060, mine was 1036. Didn't know what that meant at the time so I just ran with it.

Brew is in a 25l bin with an airlock (everything sanitised etc. as best I can figure) in my spare room, so ~20oC. Kit also suggests 10 days for first fermentation. So after 10 days I took a hyrdometer reading, came out at 1015. Kit say FG should be 1010, so I left it 2 days. Day 12, 1015. Day 13, 1015. Today, 1015.

So I have two questions;

1) Using the ABV calculator I found on here, that comes out at 2.76% which sounds very weak for this beer. Is there any way to increase or improve that? I'm not that concerned about the ABV, just a tasty beer would be good.

2) Should I go ahead and bottle anyway at 1015? I see a number of people saying they don't quite get to the FG noted, but this seems quite a bit off. Something to do with my mistake at the start (assuming I did mess up the sugar)?

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Also, siphoning is messy work. I think I need to figure out what people are using 'cause I need another hand to hold siphon in bin and operate the little valve on the end of mine!

Thanks,

Baps.


https://www.biggerjugs.co.uk/collec...oducts/brewferm-old-bruin-dark-brown-2-6-gall

Hi baps and welcome.

How much sugar and water did you add? I see this is a 12L kit, did you maybe top it up to 23L? This would explain the low OG (original gravity).
Did you dissolve the sugar and give it all a good stir? If not it may all still be sitting on the bottom, you could always give it another stir now if this is the case.

For siphoning you should buy a bottling stick, they cost a few quid and make bottling day 10 x easier, especially if doing it yourself.

I don't think I messed up the volume of water because it's about half the 25l bin. That's why I'm assuming I've messed up the sugar. I thought I added the sugar for the first phase as detailed in the kit, but if the water is correct (or even close) I thought the sugar must be wrong to arrive at that OG?

All the sugar was mixed in with the water in 2l batches. Because it was annoying to have to stir them all 2l at a time. :) It could be that it's not completely dissolved though. I should give it a stir and leave it a day or two?

Thanks for the siphon suggestion, I'll go look those up!

Many thanks,

Baps

If the can is a 1.5kg can of LME and you are making up to give just over 12 pints of wort I assume you are instructed to add extra sugar to get to OG 1.060, perhaps about 750g dextrose? Correspondingly 1.7kg LME will require about 500g dextrose to give OG about 1.060
So if you added all of the LME in the can and sugar quantity as instructed to make up to 12 pints then you will get an actual OG of about 1.060. Only by adding less LME or sugar will you get a lower SG. You may not have measured your hydrometer correctly or perhaps didn't mix the LME/sugar properly to get 1.036. Either way it doesn't matter, the yeast will have chewed its way through the malt and added sugar.
Next your current gravity is a bit high but is still acceptable at 1.015 and that gives an attenuation of about 75% and the beer an ABV of about 5.8% ABV.
And if its now stuck at 1.015 you can go ahead and bottle it.
Finally for siphoning out of the bin you will need a clip to secure the tube to the top of the bin. You can buy these although I made up my own from two clothes pegs and some wire twists and it works fine for me. And I ditched the tap in the siphon tube since it restricted the flow too much and I put up with a bit of mess at bottling time going from bottle to bottle.

There was a little stuff left in the tin but a small amount. I do think I've messed up the sugar in some way. Is that ABV calculation based on the OG measure I made of 1036? I get a much lower value out of the calculator.

Clip might well work. I don't quite get how that bottling stick works from looking at it, but if it's less fiddly it'd be worth the £3 investment! Have to youtube it up.

Thanks,

Baps.

Carefully read what I said. In short if you have added all the contents of the can and the recommended amount of extra sugar and made up to 12 pints you should hit about OG 1.060. But if you have added significantly less (or more) total sugars the OG will also be less (or more). And if you have followed the instructions about adding the correct amounts of total sugars and your OG reading is not around 1.060, you have misread the hydrometer and/or the wort was not properly mixed, and if latter the yeast will still munch through the sugars before the primary is finished.

The bottling stick is basically a short plastic tube which fits the siphon tubing. There is a short plastic pin at the bottom connected to a plastic disk, the hydrostatic pressure of the beer will push the disk down closing the bottling stick, when you push it to the bottom of the bottle it will push the pin up and open the "valve".

So basically it is a self closing valve. When its in the beer bottle the valve opens, when you pull it out it closes. I had one with a small spring holding it closed, this was annoying as you had to push the bottling stick down to keep it open, my other one held closed fine without the spring and no need to push it to open. Id recommend getting one without the spring (or removing it). Definitely worth the few quid to buy.

Thanks for the help guys, appreciate it.

I'll go ahead and bottle today then. Thought I could also weigh the remaining sugar and I'll at least know if I got the sugar right, and if not, it's one of the other factors. Must pay more attention next time!

Baps.