m_stodd

Recipes 

Last night I put together Northern Brewer's Grand Cru lambic kit. I followed it to a 'T' using the correct amounts of water, hitting my temperatures... But in the end when I added water to get it to 5 gallons, and took a hydro reading, it came out to 1.03 at 76 deg. Fahrenheit and the instructions said it should be 1.045. After feeling sad, I didn't pitch my yeast starter thinking I might dump it and try again tonight.

I did notice while sparging that a bunch of the grain wasn't cracked open. I could open up pieces and see all the goodness inside.

I'm curious what went wrong, and what I should do. Most of the responses in threads like this are "don't dump it, see how it turns out". I don't want to tie up a fermenter and wait a year just to see how a mistake turns out.

beerman0001

Recipes 

How good did you mix in your top off water?

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Fermenting.
On tap: World wide lager, Dopelbock, Apfelwein, American Wheat, DFH 90, Dortmunder export, Skeeterpee, Chinook/Citra ipa.
Waiting on a tap. Maibock, Two Hearted, Pliny the elder, Chimay White, Roggenbrier, DFH60
Fermenting:Apfelwein
On Deck:
Hiding in dark corner: Lambic, Flanders red, Oud Bruin, DFH 120(in bottles)

ArcLight

Recipes 

>>I did notice while sparging that a bunch of the grain wasn't cracked open. I could open up pieces and see all the goodness inside.

Translation = Bad Crush



The other thing to consider is did you mix the top off water in very well with the wort? If not, the gravity reading will certainly be off.

TopherM

Recipes 

First off, I'd be certain you didn't just get a bad gravity reading. Shake, stir or wisk the everliving crap out of the wort to make sure it is completely mixed before you take the reading.

If that doesn't change anything, you could technically put it back in the kettle and boil it down to hit the 1.045 OG. FAR from ideal, and you are going to lose about 20-30% of your volume, but better than dumping.

FYI, wort will sour and go bad pretty quickly without alcohol in it, so act fast no matter what you do!!

Good luck!

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m_stodd

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You were correct. I shook it and that got me to 1.032 so I thought 'eh, must have read it wrong the first time.' Then I kicked it's ass with a spaghetti server thingie, and it got up to 1.043.

Thanks

TopherM

Recipes 

Another satisfied customer!

__________________
Primary #1 - Summer Hopped Hefeweizen
Primary #2 - Honey Mango APA
Primary #3 - Centennial Blonde
Secondary #1 - Downtown Flanders Brown (Due June 2013)
Secondary #2 - Pinot Noir Wine (Due December 2013)
Keg #1 - Bavarian Pilsner Ale
Keg #2 - Hard Cider (Spring SeaCider)
Keg #3 - Tangelo Saison
Bottled - All That Razz (Raspberry Weiss), Coco Cheerio Wheat