Just finished my first brew!

Well, I just finished making Ludwig's German Pilsner last night. I think i know where i went wrong. I measured my SG and it was only 1.034 where it should have been 1.044. I had been distracted by my fiance' dancing around and forgot to stir the brew completely and it burnt just a little bit on the bottom of the pot. It was either between that or not having completely 5g at the end of the brew. I had around 4.5g. Other than that everything else went as planned. I put a blow off on it and its fermenting like crazy! I'm just wondering if it will be fit to drink or not. I guess i just have to wait and see how it turns out.

I doubt you could have burned that much onto the bottom of the pot, and if you have less than 5g of water your wart should be more concentrated, and therefore higher gravity than expected.

I'm not a pro by any stretch (actually a newb), so someone please correct me if i'm wrong.

I had plenty of water to start with before the brew. I may have boiled it too long. I dunno..

It will be absolutely just fine to drink and should taste quite well assuming your sanitization was on point. In terms of being below the estiamted gravity by ten points and being half a gallon short at the end that is a little surprising even if you did burn some on the bottom. I doubt it would have a major impact if you jsut burnt a little. Did you use all extract or did you use some grains as well.

After your boil, before you pitch yeast, see how much wort you have in the fermenter. if you are low you can boil some water (just to sanitize it) cool the water as you did the wort then fill your fermenter up to just over 5 gallons, in my case i fill to around 5.25.

Then pitch and shake the dickens out of it.

This still doesn't explain why your OG was low. If you had too much water I could see why your OG would be low, but not vice versa.

Did you calculate the offset for your hydrometer to temperature? Mine is around .001-.002 low at 70 degrees as its calibrated at 60. This still doesn't account for the difference however.

Sometimes an extract boil will not come out with the same OG because it is very hard to completely mix the wort with the top off water. I wouldn't worry about it at all. As long as your FG is around the estimated FG you will be all set.

Here are the ingredients.

5 lbs Extra Light Dried Malt Extract
1 bag Specialty Malts
1 oz Sterling Bittering Pellet Hops
1 Whirlfloc Tablet
1/2 oz Tettnang, Aromatic Plug Hops

Agree on the hydrometer you could have an issue there not only with calibration but you should spin it in the fluid to get all bubbles off. No the less there is mroe this is amount of distance. One other potential could be if you added top off water (which it wounds like you did not) and did not mix it in well you may have got a diluted sample.

The five pounds of DME alone should have gotten you to 1.044 (according to BeerSmith. Actually at 4.5g you should have had close to 1.050. Specialty malts should add some more depending on what they are and how much (not sure what one bag is), but my guess is very little based on your projected SG.

Was the liquid you tested at room temp?

I let my fiance' do the hydrometer test as she is in college and taking bookoos of science class's and labs. She insisted on showing me the "correct" way to measure it. Which is just like what you were saying to spin it to get all the bubbles off. I dunno what happened. Just gonna have to wait and see.

The liquid was 65 deg and my hydrometer is set for 60. Maybe i calculated it wrong...

65 to 60 would make very little difference, esentially zero at that gravity.

The plus side is in the end you will have drinkable beer that you will enjoy and you can try again.

How long would should i wait to switch it into my secondary? Also.. anyone had any trouble out of the buckets with the spigot on them leaking??

You'll read plenty of debate about secondaries on this forum but my advice it do not bother unless you are dryhopping, oaking or adding fruit etc. You should take a hydrometer reading after 7-10 days and see where you are relative to your projected FG. Once you have no movement in gravity for a few days I would prime in your bottling bucket and bottle.

I have not had issue with my spigot leaking, I have one on my bottling bucket only.

Did you make sure an o-ring was properly fitted on the spigot?

I just did a secondary yesterday. I had a Belgian Wit in primary for 2 weeks. My LHBS owner said if he wants to keep the beer in fermenting longer he likes to move to secondary after 10 to 14 days. He said keeping it on the yeast cake MAY add unwanted flavoring...key would being MAY. A lot of people on here say they have left beer in the primary for over a month with no unwanted flavoring. I think the only bad thing you could possibly do to the beer if you rack it to secondary is either introduce the beer to unwanted bacteria or aerate it too much. Sanitize everything and make sure you use an auto siphon with the out line at the bottom of the secondary to avoid splashing.

You also want to make sure that your actual FG is close to your estimated FG before racking to secondary.

Well i racked it over today. Checked the TG and it was spot on. I guess i was just worrying too much. haha. Now my only question is for how long to leave it in the secondary? It is not fermenting much at all. Maybe a bubble every 15mins or so..