Is this going to be safe to drink - beginner questions

[Storms04]

Hi guys I’m so sorry, I just picked brewing up because I thought it would be awesome and I got my own kit. Things have been going what I think is horribly wrong. I started my process at 1 in the morning (first mistake) and I don’t think I boiled the wort properly when first doing everything. I accidentally put part of my hops in before I reached the boil on my wort, and looking back I probably could have activated the yeast more that just shaking the package. Once my 5am fiasco was over, I’ve waited 2 weeks, consulted other freshly 21 brewbeginners, and just tested my abv, which is 1%… for a pale ale. There doesn’t seem to be any mold in my carboy, it smells like beer, it looks like beer, but I’m wondering if it can keep it contained for another week and that abv might increase or if the yeast is tapped out and it’s going to stay at 1%

Update: I had a brave soul try it and he said that it tasted like watery beer, so something has obviously gone wrong here. Thanks!

 

[Kevin58]

I can answer a couple of your questions. First, adding hops before the boil is actually a technique called "first wort hops" or abbreviated as FWH. Don't worry about that.

Second, It is fine to simply shake the package of yeast and pitch it. Not shaking the package will work too. The one thing to keep in mind is how much yeast you are pitching. If the gravity of your wort is 1.060 or less then using one package of liquid yeast should be fine. If you make a beer with a higher gravity you might want to make a yeast starter OR pitch two (or more) packages of yeast. By posting on this forum I assume you are using Beersmith software... there is a Yeast tool that will help you figure that out.

Now comes the part I'm not so sure about so I will ask you a couple of questions... how did you measure the gravity after two weeks to give you that 1% abv number? Is your beer still in the primary fermenter? It would also help to know what your recipe was... what was the original gravity... what was the temperature of the wort when you pitched the yeast... and what equipment are you using?

 

[KB]

I agree... lots of details missing to know/understand what happened.

Is this a kit of malt extract?