Hey I have a question regarding home brew.

Question

How do you know when home brew has fermented properly? I dont understand this hydrometer thing. i dont wanna bottle it in case its not ready. Any ideas??

Answer 1

You need a hydrometer to determine whether you have the correct ingredients or need to tweak the recipe a bit and to determine the alcohol content. You can brew without one if you want but your results will be better if you learn to use it. Papazian and Nachel have good beginners' books that explain how to use one. In the meantime, figure 2 weeks in the primary fermenter and about the same in the secondary. You can bottle when bubbles stop rising in the airlock. When in doubt, wait longer. Going a few more days without beer is less traumatic than cleaning up after a few "bottle bombs" have gone off.

Answer 2

Just make sure the bubbles have stopped coming out if the airlock.  With beer this is usually a week, then give it another to settle.  With wine could be a month or two or three (depending on the yeast)...and it usually helps to transfer your stuff to a secondary fermenter when you are at that stage where the airlock has slowed to less than a bubble every 30 seconds.

Answer 3

Measuring Alcohol

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrometer

http://www.lumcon.edu/education/studentd...

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Hydromet...

http://www.grapestompers.com/articles/hy...

http://www.howstuffworks.com/question532...

Answer 4

This is a two part question. First, don't sweat it. Your beer should be completely fermented in anywhere from 10-15 days. The bubbling in the primary will have basically stopped. After say 15 days tops you can transfer to secondary or rack (bottle or keg) your beer. Don't worry you have already taken the first step toward drinking better beer by brewing it yourself.

     Now to keep this simple a hydro measures the amount of a fermentable sugar within your beer. If you put a hydro in water it will read for the most part 1.00. Now add a fermentable sugar (Malted barley) and the reading will be 1.00 + X. Now add your yeast to the wort (unfermented beer) which converts a fermentable sugar to CO2 and alcohol thus changing the hydro number which will be lower than 1.00 + X (as alcohol is lighter then water) you still with me here? The hydro numbers (O.G. and F.G.) will be different these numbers will assist you in determining A.B.V. and A.B.W. while you don't need these #s to make beer it will greatly help you to understand this devise and a basic home brewing book should be in your near futures purchase as well as a hydrometer. Hope this helped as I have tried to keep it very basic to put you at ease in addition to giving you so info build upon. Keep at it and keep adding to your utencles to improve your beer with every batch.

Answer 5

You really need to learn how to use the hydrometer.

Answer 6

First, it needs to have fermented for atleast 2 weeks.

Second, the amount of CO2 gas released through the airlock should be minimal.  

If you have a wine thief and can steal a sample of your brew, a simple taste should get you in the ballpark.  Any sweetness is caused by an incomplete fermentation.  If you bottle it, and bottle condition, you risk bursting bottles because there will be excess sugar fermented in the bottle.  It should be different than a finished beer, but not sweet.