ked Posted November 11, 2008 Share Posted November 11, 2008 Hello all, I've been enjoying my Coopers home brew kit very much and have successfully made several great batches at home. I still consider myself an amateur - but an enthusiastic one. I've currently got a Coopers Cerveza in the vat and am not sure if it is ready to bottle or not. I followed the instructions closely (Cerveza kit and 1kg Coopers brewers yeast to 23 litres of water), adding the suggested 250g Coopers dextrose and 500g Coopers malt combo (all three Coopers retailers in my area have been out of brew enhancer number 2 for the last few weeks). I cast the yeast Sunday week ago (2/11) at 26 degrees with an OG of 1066. Fermentation was very active & appeared to proceed as normal with a top/average/low temperature of 26/22/21 degrees. Last Saturday (9/11) fermentation appeared to have ceased. The SG was at 1012. Being higher than recommended, I increased the temperature to around 24 degrees which prompted a little more fermentation - but not much. Tonight (Tuesday night) the SG remains at 1012, and fermentation appears to have stopped again. The brew smells and tastes great. It is bright yellow and cloudy, but smells fresh with lots of bubbles. Can anyone advise as to whether I should bottle it or not? My main concern is that I want to bottle in glass stubbies for the first time, and don't want the batch to explode. Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rossm Posted November 11, 2008 Share Posted November 11, 2008 G'day Ked, I am assuming that you havn't really used 1Kg of yeast and that is just a typo, apart from that, I have never used a hydrometer in the twelve odd years I have been brewing, I had the odd bottle pop in the early days but I was only brewing in the shed then, and as you can imagine it gets pretty hot here sometimes. I did have a couple of batches explode when I increased the priming sugar as recommended by someone who obviously didn't know what she was talking about, but apart from all that, the rule of thumb seems to be if it has a steady reading over 24hours it is safe to bottle. No doubt someone will confirm that for you shortly. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB2 Posted November 11, 2008 Share Posted November 11, 2008 Good advice, Ross. Ked, there is no shortage of BE2 in our warehouse. So it's a bit of a worry if stores are out of stock. Will get the merchadisers on to it if you can name the stores. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ked Posted November 11, 2008 Author Share Posted November 11, 2008 Thanks for your advice, guys - and yes 1kg of yeast was a typo! :oops: Paul, the Barkly Square (Brunswick, Victoria) Coles, Safeway and KMart were all out of BE2 last time I checked (last Friday). Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Luke Posted November 12, 2008 Share Posted November 12, 2008 Hi Ked, Are you sure your OG was 1.066? That's pretty high for the Cerveza! If your FG was 1.012 that's 7.5%! Ross is right, 2 same readings over 2 days and you're right to bottle. Cheers, Luke. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ked Posted November 12, 2008 Author Share Posted November 12, 2008 Yeah, I was mildly surprised at the time that I got the OG reading. However, inexperienced as I am, I assumed it was due to the addition of the dextrose. It's all safely bottled away now so I suppose I'll find out in a month or so! Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PB2 Posted November 12, 2008 Share Posted November 12, 2008 A misleading high OG reading can occur if the first runnings out of the tap (potentially with some of the extract/sugars not mxied properly) is sampled rather than discarded. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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