Help!! My ABV seems to be worryingly low!!

[craigcarmichael]

Hi, I am new to homebrewing and am currently brewing my 1st attempt which is a Coopers Canadian Blonde Kit. The beer has been in FV for a week now so I have decided to take samples and test its Specific gravity. My OG reading was 1.030 and when testing yesterday and today I read two seperate readings of 1.014 and 1.016 respectively. When I put these amounts into the ABV calculator it comes out around 1.6% abv which seems really low to me.

The temperature has been around 20-24 degrees throughout the fermentation, but may have dropped to around 19 when I went away for a few days.

Is there anything I may have done wrong, or am I worrying too much??

There also seems to be a lot of brew enhancer laying at the bottom of my FV; could this have something to do with it? Maybe it didnt dissolve properly.

Any help or advice would be great.

Thanks

 

[PD]

Hi and welcome.
If you made it up exactly as suggested in the instructions, then the OG would have been higher than 1.030. Coopers kits depending on type are usually around 1.044 to give you around 4% abv ( ish ) are you sure you added all the ingredients? did you mix it very very well? did you read the hydrometer correctly?
The kits usually work down to around 1.012.

 

[memit]

The dead yeast looks a lot like DME, so unless you didn't stir properly I imagine that's all it is at the bottom of the FV. The forum sages told me that when I had this problem, and I didn't believe them until I tasted it after I'd bottled the brew)
It's easy to cock up the readings, so just go on how it tastes. I reckon keep it in the fermenter for a while and see if the SG drops further.

 

[craigcarmichael]

Thanks guys

I have tasted a small amount and it tasted kind of like flat, yeasty lager...I'm gathering that it should taste like that is this point??

I think that I may have read the initial reading wrong, as I followed the step by step guide carefully, but may have got a little excited when reading the hydrometer. At what point do you take the reading? Is it as soon as you put the hydrometer into the test tube, or should I wait a couple of minutes for the initial head to clear??

 

[mak]

you need to spin it to clear off bubbles, but otherwise straight away is fine.

the thing to bear in mind though is the temperature of the liquid, hydrometers are calibrated for a certain temperature. So when taking a reading make sure you know both the temperature of the liquid and the calibration temperature of the hydrometer. You can then use the Calculators link at the top left of the forum to work out what the gravity is, no matter what the temperature is.

Is that maybe where you went wrong? if not, I'd say you didn't mix it up well enough..

 

[keith1664]

I think Mak's hit the nail on the head. If you follow the instructions and add the correct amount of water and sugar then you'll have the correct OG, however if not mixed in well enough then most off those sugars will be at the bottom of the FV and not in your sample. The yeasties will have found them though so no need to worry.

 

[Andyhull]

After a week that will be sediment at the bottom of the FV.
Personally i would leave it another week and then bottle/keg it.
So long as you added the right amonts of ingredients it will be fine.