When the FG is low enough to bottle

[BrewHaus]

Hi all,

I've got a brew in the fermenter at the moment and am wondering when I should bottle.

The brew was:

1.7kg Tin of Coopers Larger
1.5kg of LDM
1kg of Brew Enhancer 2
1 Pkt Safbrew T-58
Hops

This is my second brew and I wanted a little more powerful brew as I like Belguim Ales and the HomeBrew guy said this yeast would do the trick nicely with a lager base - this is only my second brew so I'm working up to using grains (my next beer will be a porter with crystal and chocolate malt and a british yeast).

The temp on the fermenter has hovered around the 18-24 degree mark for the past couple of weeks (started on the 11th of Jan).

The OG was: 1070 and I've had 1020 for the past 3 days. It doesn't seem to be dropping so should I just bottle it today at this high gravity or give it a day or so more?

My concern is leaving on the trub if it's not dropping any further in gravity.

Thanks for all the help on my previous post.

Cheers,
BrewHaus

[timmy]

I'd give the fermenter a swirl to wake up the yeasties and then see what happens after a couple of days. No need to hurry - it can sit on the trub for a month or more if your sanitation is fine
There are free brew calculation apps out there - Qbrew is one - that will calculate the anticipated FG. I wouldn't be surprised if it is about 1020 given all the extra malt you've added.

Cheers,

Tim

[warra48]

I'd expect a FG of around 1.015.

1.020 seems a little on the high side, and I'd be wary of bottling at this stage.

My last brew needed waking up half way through the fermentation (see my post under "Racking, is it really worth it?" ).
All you need to do is to twist the fermenter from side to side to disturn the layer on the bottom, and to get your yeast back into suspension. It should knock off a few more points.

Two or even three weeks in primary will do no damage at all.

[Shaun]

With the ingredients you have added and a FG of 1020 stable for 3 days I would say its finished bottle away.

[BrewHaus]

I gave the fermenter a decent swirl and left it for a couple more days at 22-24 degrees but it still read 1020 (possibly 1018 - it's always a little hard to tell exactly).

I bottled tonight and the beer tasted ok and smell fine.

It came out about 7.8% so hopefully it tastes nice once secondary fermented.

Could I have benefited from throwing more yeast in as the start or toward the end to get the FG lower? The brew calc's hovered around 1015-1016 so I guess I'm not too far off.