[medley55]

Brewed a Pumpkin ale from midwest supplies, last Sunday, Oct. 5th, 2014. 

Steeped grains at 155F for 30 minutes
Boiled malt extract, brown sugar, 1oz mt. hood hops for 60 minutes
Pumpkin for 5 minutes
1 oz cascade hops and spices for 2 minutes
Cooled to 70F within 15 minutes.
Glass carboy, 1.054 OG
Active bubbling for 24-36 hours at 65-70F

When should I bottle?  Directions say wait 2 weeks, already lots of sediment in bottom of carboy.

Thanks.

[majorvices]

When a FG reading stays the same for 72 hours you can assume the fermentation is finished assuming you are comfortable with your attenuation. Check your final gravity.

[medley55]

What should I be expecting for a final FG?

[majorvices]

What should I be expecting for a final FG?

It's impossible for me to guess without a recipe and your procedures. Most likely, for an extract beer you will have a little lower attenuation - so as a wild guess 1.014 - 1.016. But that's assuming your starting gravity was around 1.060 or so. Really, just a pot shot on my part. And regardless, as long as your FG isn't super high (say, over 1.020) and the gravity stays the same for 3 consecutive days you should be done.

[medley55]

Majorvices,

SG was 1.054, partial mash/malt extract recipe.  I need to buy a beer thief and take a few readings the next few days.

Thanks.

[jmsetzler]

One of the best and unlisted ingredients in any homebrew is a little thing called patience

If you want to improve your beer, time and patience are worth a lot!   I never take gravity readings during my fermentation unless I'm brewing a really high gravity beer (1.065 or higher).  I like to let mine sit in the fermenter for at least 3 weeks and sometimes 4.  I'll rack most of mine to a secondary fermenter after 10 or 12 days because I KNOW the fermentation is complete at that point.   What isn't complete is the bit of 'cleanup' work the yeast do after fermentation is complete.  If you are just working with a single fermenter and not planning to rack to a secondary, let it sit in there for two weeks at a minimum and let it go for three if you can!