So my wife got me a brew kit for my birthday it's from more beer..its the premium kit and came with American ale extract kit...anyways it's been in the fermentation jug for 2 weeks today. There's no activity in the airlock and everything fell to the bottom but if I hold a light along side the carboy theres still faint bubbles rising to the surface. Directions say 2 weeks then bottle. Curious if anyone knows what to look for? And no my dumbass didn't check OG because I was drinking beer and forgot..lol
Welcome to this great hobby of homebrewing. You'll love it. But drinking beer while brewing can be hazardous to your success. Even if you didn't get an OG reading you can sill get a reading now to help you determine your next step. If everything during the brewing session went according to the instructions and you ended up with the planned amount of wort, your reading now will be helpful. If your kit's recipe gives you an expected final gravity your reading now can be compared to it and then you can decide your next step to wait longer or to bottle. The bubbles that you're seeing in the fermenter are likely just the final stage of fermentation, so don't worry about them if your gravity reading is within a point or two of your expected FG. P.S. And welcome to the BA site and to the Homebrewing forum.
Well, you didn't check OG, but you can still check the current gravity, and then again in 2-3 days. If both readings are the same and in the neighborhood of what you (or the recipe) were expecting, then fermentation is finished. Airlock activity (or lack of) is not a good quanititative measure of fermentation progress.
OG won't tell you too much about when to bottle. Since it's American Pale Ale, the alcohol will probably be 5-6% abv. If, after the two week ferment, your instructions say to bottle directly (without adding sugar/extract for carbonation) that is a problem, regardless of what your initial gravity was. You don't know how much fermentable sugars remain and a gravity measurement at this won't tell you, since final gravities vary. Since your beer is under an airlock, I suggest you ferment out for an additional week or two (longer if at lower temperatures). Then siphon to another container. Then add a boiled weak sugar syrup and stir gently. You will need to gauge the amount of sugar (or other fermentable). You could use https://homebrewacademy.com/priming-sugar-calculator/
I'll test it today give it a few more days then test again. It requires 4 ounces of corn sugar to 2 cups of water during bottling for carbonation. Definitely learned my lesson not to drink while brewing. Everything else went on without a hitch on brewday. Thanks for the replies.
OG is supposed to be 1.045-50 just tested it at 1.014 and it landed exactly at the 5% abv line on the hydrometer. Gave her a little sip too not nearly as disgusting as I thought it would be. Pretty good actually.
Chances are it's done, but you can verify that in 2-3 days. BTW, the "ABV" scale on the hydrometer isn't really relevant in this context. And not to take this too far down the rabbit hole, but either your 1.014 reading or (more likely) your 5% reading is off, because 5% on the hydrometer's "ABV" scale should line up approximately with 1.038.
Damn you're right. I was way off. I have a hard time reading those lines. Maybe I'll get one of those Tilt hydrometers before I do this again. I've read a lot of good things about them.
