OG was way off, but realized too late

scottconnor · 01-24-2012, 05:54 PM

Some friends and I brewed an Oatmeal Stout extract on 1/16 (recipe attached). We took an OG reading of 1.030. Unfortunately we didn't realize at the time that that was well below the expected OG of 1.060.

I let it ferment for a week and it was at 1.023 last night. It's target is 1.017. After I moved it to a secondary fermenter, we realized that our OG was way off, because right now we have a beer that's 0.92%.

A few questions -
-If we realized at the time that our OG was way off, what could we have done about that?

- We're not sure how our OG is that far off. We followed the recipe exactly. The only flag I can think of is that we brewed inside on a stove, and our boil temperature was EXACTLY 212 degrees (according to digital thermometer). We couldn't get the boil any hotter, so we didn't have a super hot, active boil.

- Is there anything that can be done this late in the game? Anything we can add to bring our gravity up, and re-pitch the yeast?

We've learned our lesson, but are here to take our lumps. Be gentle.

HerbieHowells · 01-24-2012, 06:22 PM

If you got all the extract called for in the pot and topped off with the correct amount of water, you hit your target gravity. OG readings for partial boil extract brews are notoriously hard to get right, because you never manage to get a perfectly mixed sample. This is a common freak out. Don't worry, your beer should be fine.

beerman0001 · 01-24-2012, 06:24 PM

You most likely added top off water at the end to get it to 5gal in the fermenter. So if you put in all you ingredients then you did not miss your OG you just didn't get the wort and the water mixed evenly. When using LME and DME you can only miss the # if you put too much water in.

scottconnor · 01-24-2012, 08:19 PM

Thanks for the replies. We're pretty confident in our measurements and what we DID do on brew day (despite our lack of OG checking...). We'll keep going and use 1.060 as our OG. Cheers.