A Little Recipe Help/ Insight

Jmarsh544 · 01-27-2009, 03:12 AM

I recently put together a recipe based on Biermuncher's Centennial Blond with the following ingredents:

6 lbs. light LME
1 lbs. Cara-pils/ dextrine
.50 oz centennial
.50 cascade
1 pkg notty

I steeped the grains at 165 degree for forty minutes and then proceeded to do a 4 gallon boil for an hour with hop additions. After cooling the wort to 150 degrees and bringing the volume up to 5.5 gallons I took a specific gravity measurement and the OG was 1.026. I took the reading twice because this was lower than I was expecting. I added the yeast and fermented in the primary for 3 weeks at 64 degrees.

I took a reading yesterday before bottling and the FG was 1.12. I was hoping that someone could run this recipe in Beersmith and let me know what the estimated OG and FG were supposed to be as well as any reasons why these low numbers may have occurred.

(The beer tasted great from the sample tube)

Thanks

XXguy · 01-27-2009, 03:53 AM

My one question that jumps out is - what was the temperature of the wort when you took your OG reading? had you stirred the water in with the extract ? It's kind of hard to miss big on the OG when you're using extracts if you're anywhere close to following the recipe.

When I plug those numbers into Beersmith - I get an estimated OG of 1.049 on a 5.5 gallon batch - with an estimated FG of 1.012, I think you meant to say your FG ended up at that figure. If it really was 1.120 you're doing reverse fermentation.

I'm guessing something tripped up your OG reading, and you ended up making a good beer that ended up at 1.012 like it should have.

Jmarsh544 · 01-27-2009, 04:13 AM

The OG was taken at 150 degrees and you are correct the FG was 1.012. I am starting to get the feeling that I may have had a beer too many when taking my OG reading. I just wanted to make sure there was no glaring mistake that anyone could see in my process.

Thanks for the input.

XXguy · 01-27-2009, 04:23 AM

You need to take the OG reading at 60 degrees... or correct the reading for temperature. Higher temps = thinner wort/beer. It's like .002 or .003 for every 10 degrees.... but it gets really skewed as you get farther away from 60 degrees.

If I roughly say 90 degrees off from the desired 60 degrees - you need do do 9 x.003 which would be like .027 - added to your observed reading of 1.026 would give 1.053 as a roughly corrected reading. Most of the time you're correcting for something more like 65, 70, or 75 degrees.

I've never heard of anyone recommending reading the OG at such a high temp. Most would recommend taking an OG right before or after pitching the yeast.

Live & learn - right? you still made beer!

Look into making/buying a wort chiller - you can get the temp down into the 70's or 80's in around 10-15 minutes doing a 3 or 4 gallon boil. Check out the DIY section for how to do it.

**Mutilated1** · 01-27-2009, 04:24 AM

Oh well if the OG was taken at 150F then that explains why it was so low. If you had taken the reading about 60F you would likely have gotten the reading you expected.

KNOTSANE · 01-03-2011, 02:57 PM

For my initial gravity reading, I use a refractometer. No need to cool the wort down to the 60 degrees needed for a hydrometer. Now as fermentation gets going, I use the hygrometer. It is my understanding that as the brew ferments, the refractometer will not be accurate. Maybe someone can give a reason, but I use both when looking at gravity readings throughout the process.