First kit woes, have I messed up?

[Acamas]

Hello everyone
I'm very new to brewing, I'm a week into brewing my very first kit; a Coopers international English Bitter kit.
To it I added 460g of Light spray malt, and 240g of brewing sugar.
First issue is that the initial gravity came out at I think 1.032 (which seemed a bit low, I don't mind so much if the abv is low, but I'm a little worried that's too low to ferment fully)
So I left it for a week, then syphoned it off of the sediment. Had a little taste out of the trail jar and it was a little sweet, so I guess it hasn't yet finished.
At this point I added some dry hops, fuggles and saaz, at what I thought was about 20 and 10g respectively, but I didn't have accurate enough scales to measure it.

Today I got some digital scales and measured the hops I have left and it seems I've actually added about 50g of fuggles and 30 of saaz.

Be honest with me, have I ruined my beer? Will the hops in the extract and the hops I've added on top make it undrinkable? Or because this is my first brew am I just being worried over nothing?

All this waiting is killing me, waiting for the delivery of my first-born wasn't this stressful.

[Kev888]

The dry hops will add a little bitterness, but not a huge amount because the wort is cool and won't go after the bitter oils like warm wort does. So it may well be that it will be a tiny bit on the bitter side and rather full of aroma but still drinkable, if not quite what you intended. Allowing time for the beer to mature slightly can also help rub off some of the edge.

I'm guessing the dry hops were your additions. Its not wrong to do that where hop aroma is appropriate for the style, but FWIW you may find it helpful to begin by making the beer without changes and improvisations, just so that you have a base to compare the effects of your alterations against in future brews.

The slightly low gravity shouldn't hinder fermentation; the yeast will use whatever sugars they can. It will result in a lower ABV and also a lower final gravity though, so you may find it tastes a little lacking in residual sweetness and body. I'm not familiar with that kit so I don't know what the gravity should be; possibly you fell foul of the scales again?

Generally the best way to tell that it has finished is when the gravity reaches roughly what you expect and stays there for a few days in a row. However, be aware that temperature of the beer (and bubbles) can affect the hydrometer reading so you may need to compensate if you don't measure the beer at the temperature the hydrometer is calibrated for.

[Fil]

relax the dry hop additions will add aroma and not over bitter the brew, and if too strong its not a very long lasting effect and stashing a few months will diminish the effect though i doubt it will need it

the low gravity. what was the recommended sugar addition? iirc its generally a kilo of sugar?? you only added 700g and spray malt will provide slightly less alcohol w/w than sucrose (white sugar) or the glucose (brewing sugar), you are close to the minimum gravity to produce a viable beer, iirc anything that ends up less than 2.9% will have a limited shelf life (too low an alcohol content)..

If the sugar addition recommendation was 700g then the LME extract may not have totally dissolved in the liquor and resulted in a false reading in the hydrometer.. if so that shouldnt really be a problem.. did you empty the tin with kettles of off the boil water??

but if you have under sugared,simply bung in 300g or whatever the shortfall is of white sugar, the yeast will then make up the alcohol shortfall ensuring a beer with shelf life..

the bad news is the times things take suggested on the kit instructions can be optimistic, think in terms of 2 weeks or more in the bucket @ 18-19c and another 2 weeks in the bottle at a similar temp before 2-4 weeks in the cool before the beer is ready, by all means crack a sample whenever you like but dont dismiss the beer if not at its best early on..

[Acamas]

The Coopers kit seems to recommend only 500g of light dry malt, so I was expecting it to come out a little stronger. I did rinse out the can with hot kettle water to get all of the extract.
To be honest I'm flying a little blind as I don't trust my ability with a hydrometer, I could have even read low, though my hydrometer has the high and low marks for beer and wine and it was sitting right near the top of the second beer mark, so I think I'm in the ball park. (also checked the hydrometer in tap water and it was at 0)
It's been at about 21C for the whole of the ferment, sitting in the bottom of my airing cupboard.

If I were to add more sugar to up the abv, how much longer would it take to ferment? Do I syphon it off of the hops and then add the sugar or leave the hops in for how ever many weeks it takes to finish?
I should probably leave it with fingers crossed, I was just hoping my first brew wouldn't be a complete disaster.

[Fil]

Ive just googled the kit,, a 1.7kg tin of LME and it does suggest a 500g dme addition.. I bung those values into brewmate, a free s/w tool for brewers thats simple (compared to beersmith ) that should provide an OG of 1.030 and with a FG of 1.008 an expected 2.95% abv.. http://www.softpedia.com/get/Others/Mis ... Mate.shtml

So the additional brewers sugar should up the OG a bit as it did and if you finish at 1.008 as suggested then your looking at 3.45% abv

so the kit as suggested will contain just enough alcohol for shelf life, but with the little extra your bringing up the expected alcohol content to a more respectable 3.45% which imho is ideal for a quaffable session beer

but you can plug in the numbers yourself with the above link when the app starts up select 'Grain Bill calculations by weight' tho if u miss it you can just open the settings menu..

its not a strong beer kit, this retailer suggests a 1kg spray malt addition.
http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/aca ... yk2k_krK00

spray malt is expensive but prefered as its a mix of simple and complex sugars the yeast munch on the simple sugars and leave the longer complex ones for us to appreciate as malty flavour and body.. brewers sugar and table sugar sucrose are simple sugars, and while they will feed the yeast they wont leave any body in the beer..

Personally i dont rack off the yeast until i keg or bottle and just add any dry hops into the primary FV. you loose less beer to deadspace and sediment, and halve or more the risk of airborne microlife gaining access and spoiling the brew. But its a subject well debated elsewhere and as the brewer the ultimate decision is yours.
So if you want to add more fermentables you can do so without further racking off if you want

So given the above info i would leave as is and keep my fingers crossed for a nice low FG

[wanus]

Hello acamas,fil and kev I hope have reassured you there.Another thing I may add is I presume your kits a 23 litre jobbie?In future brew down to 20 litres on all 23 litre kits.Don`t always do as it says on the tin.Your ABV will increase due to this and even brewed with sucrose will have more body.We all like a nice a body on ere Put that extra sugar in there and maybe another yeast sachet if it looks lifeless.. My 1st brew was I thought ok but I learnt as I went on and keep improving.Its part of what its all about.Good luck and happy brewing.

[Acamas]

[quote="wanus"]Hello acamas,fil and kev I hope have reassured you there.Another thing I may add is I presume your kits a 23 litre jobbie?In future brew down to 20 litres on all 23 litre kits.Don`t always do as it says on the tin.Your ABV will increase due to this and even brewed with sucrose will have more body.We all like a nice a body on ere Put that extra sugar in there and maybe another yeast sachet if it looks lifeless.. My 1st brew was I thought ok but I learnt as I went on and keep improving.Its part of what its all about.Good luck and happy brewing.[/quote]


Yes everyone here has given me good advice, I'm feeling more confident now.
I should have mentioned that I did brew it to 20l rather than the full 23.
I think for the moment I will just leave it and see how it goes, rather than risk messing something up / introducing an infection. Though if I do this brew in future, it's going to get a lot more fermentables.

Thanks very much everyone!