Coopers wheat beer kit - bottle or wait?

[deceit]

This is my first try at homebrew, kit or otherwise. Really enjoying it so far. I brewed the kit with 1kg of brew enhancer 1. The temp has been 22C for the most part. The OG was 10138. Fermentation took place, krausen,trub, carbonation in the sample but after a week the SG was 1015. I was hoping for 1008. Should  I leave the brew in the FV for another week or is this what my recipe will result in? Any advice appreciated. Cheers.

[Bzfeale80]

best leave it for another bit in the fv. the instructions that came with the coopers kit should tell you an approximate final sg. bear in mind that most of the figures for time quoted are the average in australia not here. in my experience coopers kits take about 2.5 - 4 weeks to ferment down to final sg.

Sent from my GT-I8160 using Tapatalk 2

[johnrm]

Hi Deceit,
Welcome to the NHC!
10138 looks odd. Was it 1038?
As Bzfeale, I would leave it another couple of weeks it won't do any harm.
What was the kit?
What part of the world are you in?
John

[LordEoin]

last time I made one of these standard it started at 1.036 and ended at 1.009.
Leave it another week anyway, and make sure it's warm enough (around 20C)

[deceit]

/quote]

Hi John,
I am living  near Castlepollard in Westmeath. The OG of 1038 may be wrong as it was my first time reading a hydrometer since I left college in the early 90's but I'd think that the reading isn't too far off.  I think everything was disolved by the time I took the reading.

Thanks for the advice everyone. I'll take a reading this weekend and if it doesn't look right I'll leave it another week.
Deceit

[deceit]

Hi again,

I waited another 2 weeks and the SG reading ended up at 1015. So that was 3 weeks since brew day. There was no evidence of the SG changing over the last few days so I bottled yesterday and now have 40 odd 500ml PET bottles with my Coopers wheat beer/brew enhancer 1 mix. It certainly smelled like beer during bottling! Looking forward to sampling one in two weeks time. My Coopers starter kit came with 500ml bottles and instructions saying to add 2x carbonation drops per 500ml bottle for wheat beer.

Does wheat beer require more priming sugar than other styles?

Cheers, deceit

[LordEoin]

Wow, 12g per liter? + all that unfermented sugar in the beer already! .. that's going to be fizzy...
That's double what I'd normally use for a fairly fizzy beer.
Those drops are recommended by Coopers at 2 per 750ml bottle, that's 1.5 per 500ml (which is still too much in my opinion

Keep the bottles somewhere they won't do damage if they pop.
Check them regularly and make sure they've not gone rock hard.
If they do go rock hard, open them gently to let excess pressure out, then recap them.

Otherwise, well done on your first brew! If it tasted like beer, then

[deceit]

Thanks for the advice LordEoin. I'll keep an eye on the bottles. I hope I didn't misread the instruction sheet from the kit supplier!

[LordEoin]

the coopers instructions are a bit weird and hard to follow at times

[Ciderhead]

Thank God they are in PET otherwise it's the bomb squad I'd be calling