Original gravity much higher than expected

Greetings! Although this is my first post, I have been using the forum for educational purposes for a few months. I've learned a lot here and HBT is certainly my go to source for brewing questions.

Anyways, for my last two brews I have been experimenting with smaller extract batches (2.5 - 3 gallons) in order to allow me to get a full boil. I've been using Beersmith to put together the recipes.

Most recently I brewed a milk stout with the following for a final batch size of 3 gallons.

30 Minute Steep:
.5 lbs of Crystal 120
.5 lbs of Roasted Barley
.5 lbs of Chocolate Malt

60 Min Boil:
3.5lbs Muntons Plain Dark DME
1oz Fuggles

15 Min Boil
.5 lbs of Lactose

I pitched Wyeast 1084 Irish Ale @ 68F.

Including the Lactose, Beersmith had the OG calculated out to be 1059. At 68F my hydrometer read 1078. The volume did end up being slightly less than 3 gallons, but even when I adjusted Beersmith to reflect that the OG did not jump that significantly.

Is the Lactose to blame for this? How will this affect my FG? The Wyeast package suggested it would work best for beers under 1.060. Would pitching more yeast have any impact?

emgarsh said:

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Including the Lactose, Beersmith had the OG calculated out to be 1059. At 68F my hydrometer read 1078. The volume did end up being slightly less than 3 gallons, but even when I adjusted Beersmith to reflect that the OG did not jump that significantly.

Is the Lactose to blame for this? How will this affect my FG? The Wyeast package suggested it would work best for beers under 1.060. Would pitching more yeast have any impact?

Click to expand...

Is the Lactose to blame for this?
DPB: Sure it is desolved solids in a liquid and adds weight... Your Final Gravity is what is important.
How will this affect my FG?
DPB: It should be higher also since those sugars will not ferment.

Would pitching more yeast have any impact?
DPB: No since it is not going to ferment anyway.

ALSO:
I have three hydrometers and they all give different results... drives me crazy...

I measure with all three sometimes just to confirm the difference between the OG and the FG...

I'd definitely check your hydrometer to be certain it's reading accurately. Check it in some plain old water @ 60F, and it should read 1.000. Use distilled water if you have it, otherwise tap water should do the trick almost as well.

The recipe you described should not be producing a gravity as high as you're measuring, off the top of my head (don't have a copy of BeerSmith handy to run the numbers to double check). But extract is extract - you can't goof up and accidentally get more sugars that what's actually there. There's a measurement error going on somewhere. It's got to be either you hydrometer (the more common source), your volume is way off what you think it is, or you're using far more extract than you believe you are.

Thanks for the responses!

I had checked the hydrometer previously(not before this brew) in tap water and it came out to about 1.002, so I've just been adjusting measurements to compensate. Will the hydrometer being off by such a small amount in water affect higher gravities more? For instance does 1.002 in water mean a 1.060 reading in wort is actually 1.058? Or will the inaccuracy of the reading grow exponentially with the gravity of the liquid?

That's possible - the only way to know for sure is to test it with something of a known specific gravity and see what you get.

And I just realized I never answered the rest of your questions: You FG could be a few points higher, if your OG is truly higher. If your beer is already actively fermenting (ie, you have a krausen) then it's too late to pitch more yeast. If your OG was truly higher (again, doubtful unless you added a lot more DME than you think you did) then you would have experienced a shorter lag time (the beer would have formed that krausen quicker) if you had pitched more yeast. But that 1.060 figure on the yeast packet also assumes a 5 gallon batch, 3 gallon, so that may even things out a little bit for you.

So, if we assume, for the time being, that your hydrometer reads 2 points high and you're already accounting for this, lets look at other sources of measurement error:
1) How are you measuring your water (and finished wort) volume?
2) How are you measuring your DME weight?

Having too little volume or too much extract, or both, can easily lead to higher gravity.

I saw airlock activity this AM so I'm thinking fermentation has started. I know that's not the greatest way to gauge it but I ferment in opaque buckets so it's all I have unless I want to constantly open it up.

I measure my pre boil volume with my brew kettle which has gallons markers on the inside. I finished just slightly below the 3 gallon mark. For my finished wort I use the markers on my 5 gallon fermentation bucket. That was also slightly below 3 gallons.

For my DME weight I used a scale and dumped one 3lb bag and half of a 1lb bag in, so I'm pretty sure that was accurate. Same for the Lactose.

One other thing I am thinking of, after I cooled down my wort I simply dumped the wort into the fermentation bucket. After giving it a brief moment I took my sample for the OG. Could dumping the wort directly into the bucket and taking a reading right away throw it off? Sounds ridiculous but if the liquid had not settled is it possible the consistency/gravity is inconsistent?