Is my final gravity too high for bottling?

Question

I am making an Irish Red Ale, unfortunately I forgot to take a starting gravity reading before putting the beer into primary fermentation (primary fermentation was done at 68 °F +/- a few). Unfortunately this means that I wont be able to calculate the final ABV of the beer. I let it ferment for 16 days now, on the 14th day I read a final gravity of 1.028 and the same same thing on the 16th day.

Do you guys think it would be a good time to bottle the beer? I will be adding priming sugar as well, so I'm worried about the bottles exploding. Or should I just longer?

The ingredients used came from this website, the main difference is that I used a different brand of yeast.

I think the problem could be that I only used one pack of yeast.

• 9.9 lbs British pale ale malt
• 6.0 oz Great Western crystal malt (45 °L)
• 6.0 oz Great Western crystal malt (120 °L)
• 5.0 oz. (142 g) roasted barley (+300 °L)
• 5.25 AAU Kent Golding pellet hops, (1.05 oz at 4.7% alpha acid)
• Omega Yeast Irish Ale (OYL-005) Slurry

Answer 1

In general, you can consider you fermentation completed when you get the same gravity reading for 3 days in a row. It is either completed or stuck (I won't go on the details here, but do a search on 'stuck fermentation' if you like).

In your case, 1.028 seems low enough to be considered finished. You can go ahead and bottle, however, I would recommend letting it sit for a few more days to help clarify the beer.

Answer 2

If the gravity is indeed stable, I think @phillippe's answer is good, logical advice and would be wise to follow.

On the other hand, if this is a 5gal(19L) all grain batch with ~10lbs of fermentable grain, I don't think your SG could be much over 1.050. This is of course an assumption, based on ~10 pounds of grain and average efficiency.

That means you've got a beer ~3% that is likely quite sweet with very low IBUs to balance. If I were in your shoes- I would repitch or put some WLP001 just to finish it out. Of course- this is personal preference.

Answer 3

"... beer should not be bottled if gravity reading is higher than 1.006 or the bottle may burst" A quote from a conventional wine & beer hydrometer user instructions. Couldn't agree more. 1.028 is an alarmingly high FG to proceed to bottling.