extremely high OG!

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BadKarmaa

BadKarmaa

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I just finished racking my new castle clone to the primary and took a hydro reading. 1.078! Whats up with that? it should be in the 1.048-1.051 range. The temp is just as it should be so what would cause it to be so high and what effect will this have on the final product? The only thing i can think of is that the guy at my local supply store blended way too much black, chocolate and crystal malt. the recipe calls for 1 oz 2oz and 2 oz respectively and 5.75 lbs Light DME. Otherwise how did I end up with so many fermentable sugars? I'd really like to know what affects the OG especially since my last batch had OG of 1.031 and should have been 1.040-1.045.:confused:
 
Not enough water maybe? Then again, crunching the numbers, it looks like you would need to be down around 3.5 gals to get that gravity :confused:
 
Larger amounts of steeped grains wouldn't make up for that difference, unless you had a few pounds as opposed to few ounces. The first time I brewed, I took the gravity reading on the boil volume (about 3 gallons), and got a really high number.
 
nope. took the gravity reading before i pitched the yeast. had a full 5 gallons. I took a another look at it this afternoon and fermentation still hasn't started after 16 hours. I'm half expecting it to take a long time to start though with such a high OG. The other half of me is praying it doesnt' get stuck.
 
If you didn't make a starter, it could take a while, maybe up to 48 hours. If it doesn't by then, some more yeast may be in order.
 
From what I have read in the past, steeping grains really does not add much fermentable sugars. I would think that your LHBS gave you the wrong amount of ingredients.
 
It's a miracle! Seriously, being over by that much would have required 4-5 pounds of grains or 3 pounds of DME. Which, if he gave pounds of grains instead of oz., could be the cause. All of the grains listed will steep out about 60-80% of what you'd get in a mash. If so, you will have a heavy stout with a FG around 1.025 on your hands.

Five oz. of specialty grains would fit in your hand. Five pounds in that mix would make a tar black wort.
 
Yeah, I'd say hydrometer might be the problem, but it might be temp. Temperature affects the hydrometer reading. But I can't remember if hotter temps means lower or higher hydrometer readings. I always take readings at 70F.

But if your gravity really is that much higher it almost definitely wouldn't come from specialty grains. It would be a miracle and one that I'd be happy about. That means your beer is going to pack a punch, which means less consumption, more happy.:cross:
 
Temperature isn't the problem. A high temp makes the reading falsely low. You have to add a correction to the reading to find the true gravity. Looks like they gave you more on accident. Could be worse. They could have shorted you!;)
 
BadKarmaa said:
I just finished racking my new castle clone to the primary and took a hydro reading. 1.078! Whats up with that? it should be in the 1.048-1.051 range. The temp is just as it should be so what would cause it to be so high and what effect will this have on the final product? The only thing i can think of is that the guy at my local supply store blended way too much black, chocolate and crystal malt. the recipe calls for 1 oz 2oz and 2 oz respectively and 5.75 lbs Light DME. Otherwise how did I end up with so many fermentable sugars? I'd really like to know what affects the OG especially since my last batch had OG of 1.031 and should have been 1.040-1.045.:confused:
Click to expand...

If they gave you 8.75 lbs of DME then that OG would make sense.

I once had a Ubrew weigh some crystal and chocolate malt since My I couldn't find my scale. I gave them the amounts in lbs but there scale was in kilos and the guy screwed up his math and gave me double of what I asked. My red ale suddenly became my barley wine once I added extra LME.

Could you thermometer be giving you the worng temp? I heard some thermometers can be out by 10oC.
 
david_42 said:
It's a miracle! Seriously, being over by that much would have required 4-5 pounds of grains or 3 pounds of DME. Which, if he gave pounds of grains instead of oz., could be the cause. All of the grains listed will steep out about 60-80% of what you'd get in a mash. If so, you will have a heavy stout with a FG around 1.025 on your hands.

Five oz. of specialty grains would fit in your hand. Five pounds in that mix would make a tar black wort.
Click to expand...

I used enough to fit in two hands cuped together. It looked to me to be a little less than the 8 oz bag of crystal that came with my first kit. Also the recipe called for 5.75 lbs of extract so thats what I used. Either way it tastted great. Really sweet though, so I might add some wort tea using 1/2 oz of Northern Brewer to balance it out. Might add some more yeast too if it doesn't start fermenting by tomorro night.
 
take a reading when you see no activity, if it's still too high, add some neautral dry yeast, and let it sit for another week. just let this one take it's course and don't rush it. should be potent and smooth by the time it's ready :~)
 
thanks for the tip, but if it comes to that do you recomend just activating the yeast or making a yeast starter. Also, why neutral dry yeast? Shouldn't I use the same liquid yeast I pitched with?
 

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