Really excited newbie brewer

Northern Brewer General
1

I finished my first gallon of wheat beer about 1-2 weeks ago. Had it sitting in bottles and just cracked open my first brew. Poured it in a glass (pretty cloudy). Also got really anxious waiting for that one gallon to brew so i made a 5 gal irish red, 5 gal pumpkin ale, and 5 gal hard cider.

I have three Q’s:

  1. how can i record the alc% if i never took a starting one? (I bought a hydrometer)

  2. For the hard cider i took a starting reading of 1.050, does that seem high? Should i have taken the reading before or after i added the yeast nutrient and brown sugar? cider yeast wasn’t added yet

  3. How do I know if the yeast properly fermented in each? I saw bubbles in the chamber so i assume so.

Cheers

2

  1. Since you didn’t take an original gravity, you can assume what was published with the kit is more or less what you got. Extract is extract if you topped off to +/- 5 gallons. Then compare it to your final gravity. I use this site: http://www.rooftopbrew.net/abv.php

  2. Not knowing the kit, that seems about right for a 5-6% beverage

  3. The only way to really tell is take a couple hydrometer readings a few days apart. If nothing changed and you’re down where you expect - roughly 1.008 to 1.015 or so for an average beer - then you’re done.

3

[quote=“CH0P5”]I finished my first gallon of wheat beer about 1-2 weeks ago. Had it sitting in bottles and just cracked open my first brew. Poured it in a glass (pretty cloudy). Also got really anxious waiting for that one gallon to brew so i made a 5 gal irish red, 5 gal pumpkin ale, and 5 gal hard cider.

I have three Q’s:

  1. how can i record the alc% if i never took a starting one? (I bought a hydrometer)

  2. For the hard cider i took a starting reading of 1.050, does that seem high? Should i have taken the reading before or after i added the yeast nutrient and brown sugar? cider yeast wasn’t added yet

  3. How do I know if the yeast properly fermented in each? I saw bubbles in the chamber so i assume so.

Cheers[/quote]

  1. You want a gravity reading after you add your brown sugar. That way you know your total fermentable gravity.
4

thanks guys very much, and i like that link, now just have to wait a few more weeks to try out the brew