Hi folks, we are new to this (a mate and myself) but we have started full grain mashing and brewing. We have followed book recipes to the letter and learned a lot from that batches we have done.
batch 1 - ended up smelling eggy so chucked
batch 2 - ended up smelling vinegary so chucked.
we bought some new sanitiser and scrapped the pH powder that we had been using (thought it may be contaminated).
batch 3 - smells great (gas from bubble trap). I’ve tested the OG/FG and found that it is only 2% . Starting wort was 1.0359 and wort 7 days later was 1.0197. The bubbling has stopped so I feel like I should be priming now ready for bottling. My questions are around why the ABV is so low. Could it be I measured the OG wrong? (I measure the first wort, then the wort after sparging each of two times - I term the OG as the wort pre boiling and hopping. I measure it with a refractor yet and convert the Brix units), is it likely that the fermentation was really done in 6 days (it stopped bubbling then but had previously been bubbling frantically). There is a good smell and the run off that I test smells like beer.
batch 4 - currently bubbling frantically but smelling quite yeasty so jury is out unless I don’t get that lovely beer smell in the next couple of days... my batch 2 smelled similar.
overall, clearly the first 2 batches were contaminated but I would be really disappointed if batch 4 is contaminated too. We are obsessive about sanitising everything. We do boil with the lid off (so we can watch the hot break etc). Just interested to know what folks are contaminating their brews with.
batch 1 - ended up smelling eggy so chucked
batch 2 - ended up smelling vinegary so chucked.
we bought some new sanitiser and scrapped the pH powder that we had been using (thought it may be contaminated).
batch 3 - smells great (gas from bubble trap). I’ve tested the OG/FG and found that it is only 2% . Starting wort was 1.0359 and wort 7 days later was 1.0197. The bubbling has stopped so I feel like I should be priming now ready for bottling. My questions are around why the ABV is so low. Could it be I measured the OG wrong? (I measure the first wort, then the wort after sparging each of two times - I term the OG as the wort pre boiling and hopping. I measure it with a refractor yet and convert the Brix units), is it likely that the fermentation was really done in 6 days (it stopped bubbling then but had previously been bubbling frantically). There is a good smell and the run off that I test smells like beer.
batch 4 - currently bubbling frantically but smelling quite yeasty so jury is out unless I don’t get that lovely beer smell in the next couple of days... my batch 2 smelled similar.
overall, clearly the first 2 batches were contaminated but I would be really disappointed if batch 4 is contaminated too. We are obsessive about sanitising everything. We do boil with the lid off (so we can watch the hot break etc). Just interested to know what folks are contaminating their brews with.