I recently brewed my first batch of home brew using an extract kit (Big River Brown Ale from Midwest Supplies). I bottled the stuff about 10 days ago after two weeks in the fermenter. I did a gravity reading at both the 5-day mark and the two-week mark. Both were the same, so I knew fermentation had stopped by the two-week mark, so I went ahead with bottling as the recipe recommended. The final gravity was a little higher than the recipe anticipated. The FG was supposed to be about 1.010-1.012, but it ended up at 1.018. I cracked a bottle about a week after bottling, and it's definitely drinkable, but I'm just wondering what could be a reason for the low fermentation. I pretty much followed the recipe to a T. I used dry yeast, which I just sprinkled into the fermenter before sealing it up. Fermentation temp was around 65 for the whole two weeks. I've read some people recommend re-activating dry yeast before use. Could this have made the difference?
1.018 sounds like a pretty typical FG for an extract kit, especially one with steeping grains. Looking at the specs for that recipe, I doubt there's anything you could have done to reach a lower FG with that recipe aside from altering said recipe.
Beside what Curt said above, the next possibility to look at is whether your beer finished up with the proper liquid amount for which the recipe is written. If you didn't account for loss of liquid due to boil-off, then your beer will have a higher viscosity and FG.
