First timer issue

I am 2 weeks into my first All Grain batch and my first dry hopping transfer experience to a secondary. Before I transferred to my secondary to dry hop, I took a hydrometer reading and it read zeros basically. Can I assume that I botched this batch? To answer your first question, no I didn’t take a reading before fermentation due to many reasons. Basically i forgot.

More information is needed to determine what is going on with your beer. recipe and mash temperature are needed, as well as the yeast strain that you used.

oh, and welcome to the forum,

J

How does it taste?

Can you explain how it read zero? This obviously isnt’t your first batch so where do you think you went wrong?

I mashed in the low 150’s for 60 minutes.
Nottingham yeast…
Fermented vigorously after 12 hours for at least a day or two. Temp stayed between 68-70 for the last two weeks. I used an Ale Pale for my primary. After the first 2 days I got a bubble every now and then, but it hasn’t done anything in at least a week. As I found out today, I did shake the Pale after fermentation 2 times in a 48 hour period for aeration, and now I know not to aerate after fermentation. Could this have done me in? Any chance my hydrometer is faulty, since this is the first time I used it?

This is my first AG batch. I did some Malt Syrup brewing, very little, a few years ago. I did some research and watched the “how to” videos online for All Grain brewing before I started so I knew something before I started.

By “reading zero” I meant that the gravity after 2 weeks was at 1.000. Basically the hydrometer was barely above the wort. I just tasted it and it tastes like the hops I used. It doesn’t taste ‘bad’.

Maybe its fine, but something didn’t go the way it was supposed to during mashing and it will just have a very low Alcohol content.

Thanks for all your input, I appreciate it!

Have you tested your hydrometer in plain water?
If it doesn’t read 1.000 @ 60F corrected then that’s your issue.

Thanks for your help. I tried a reading again and it hovers at about 1.008, just under the 10 mark. So there is a reading and the temp is above 60 degrees which will convert to a touch higher gravity from what I understand. It will be lite on the alcohol, well, less than I thought it would be anyway without doing the proper math for OG.

I will readdress my mashing technique for my next batch I guess, along with yeast pitch.

Thanks again.

Let’s go back to the beginning. What is the recipe?

Alcohol content is based on the starting sugar content (original gravity, OG) and the finished sugar content (final gravity, FG).

Your current reading (specific gravity, SG) tells you absolutely nothing about the alcohol content, until you know what the OG was.

If you didn’t take a OG reading, with the recipe we can get a general idea what the OG would be.

What’s your grain bill and water volume, this will help to figure your OG.

Finishing at 1.008 might make it higher in ABV than you think.

Do you use a recipe program that will give you an est. OG and an est. FG?
Theres alot of free ones out there so you don’t have to wing it.

You said that temps were between 68 and 70. Was that room temp or actual beer temp.

This info can help us, help you.

Welcome to the forum Schmidter.