I just introduced a friend into homebrew and brewed my first batches in three years.

Anyway, he was hot to brew and so we stopped into brew & grow (because it was the closest) and picked up two kits.

He's a Leinie's / MGD drinker... so we grabbed the Novice Gold and American Dream Ale extract kits.

Honestly, I've never been too thrilled with Brew & Grow and would rather use Mid-west or Northern, but I wasn't paying for it.

Long story short...
On the SPG scale they both came in at right around 27 at 74 degrees F after we'd added the yeast.  To get the final SPG should we heat the beer back up to 74 degrees?  I would assume so -- I saw this fancy hydrometer ( after we got our reading ) that says you should test the beer at 60F.  Well 60F isn't going to happen when it's 85F where you're brewing.

We made the two batches and I asked him to check on them when he gets up and in the evening -- just see if they're forming the krausen and if there's any overflow.

He said they were bubbling like made the first day and haven't bubbled much since.  I was concerned, so I went over there and checked them out yesterday -- just 3 days after we put the beer in the carboys the krausen has come and gone and not more than an inch and a half in a 6 gal carboy.  They were both still bubbling, but nothing near as active as I would think they should be.

I know I need to relax and have a homebrew, but at what point should I be concerned that the yeast isn't going to break down all the sugar and think about adding a smack pack split between the two 5gal batches.  I think I always brewed (ales) at between 68 and 72 and never had an issue, but I use smack-packs instead of dried yeast.

Thanks for the insight.


Ryan