Is my Gravity too high?

larrysbooze · 09-26-2009, 03:31 AM

I am doing a recipe from Charles Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing. Its called Goat Scrotum Ale, and I let my buddy choose what recipe for us to use (thought the name was funny). I made the Wort today and put it in my primary. I put too much malt extract in there. I put 6 lbs of extract instead of 5 lbs. Because of this I put another half gallon-gallon of water in. The gravity is supposed to be at 1.050-1.060, but the gravity on this is 1.090.

What should I do? Is there anything? If not, what happens to this? Will there just be a lot more alcohol in it?

blowmax10 · 09-26-2009, 03:57 AM

Please don't brew according to papazian's book, its so out dated that its not funny

Pick up a copy of john Palmer's "How to Brew"

Please - You'll thank me later

tdavisii · 09-26-2009, 03:59 AM

couple of things you can do. 1. take some out and add water 2. drink a higher alcohol beer...........Just keep in mind that with that big of a beer there will be a couple added factors. You might want to add some more yeast. If you made a big starter you will be fine. Also with my experience in making big beers they almost always need some ageing. All of mine have finished with a hot/alcohol taste. This will go away with time.

**ChshreCat** · 09-26-2009, 04:00 AM

Papazian isn't bad. And even if his book is a little out of date, that's no reason not to brew his recipes. We haven't stopped using malted barley or anything...

An extra lb of extract in a 5 gallon batch won't make that big of a difference. What you did was get your hydro sample from the thicker wort at the bottom of the fermenter, so your OG was artificially high. Relax and let it go and you'll have a slightly stronger, slightly maltier beer.

**ChshreCat** · 09-26-2009, 04:04 AM

Punch everything you used into here:
http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe
including the extra extract, and set the batch size to 5.5 gallons to account for the extra water. That will tell you what your actual OG will be. When you're doing extract, the final OG will be very, very close to what the predicted OG says.

businesstime · 09-26-2009, 12:48 PM

Also may want to check your hydrometer. Does it sit pretty near 1.000 in water?

larrysbooze · 09-27-2009, 05:43 AM

Yes, I checked it. It is at about 1.000-1.002. I think that is fine. Hopefully it will turn out okay.

**ChshreCat** · 09-27-2009, 05:59 AM

Then your concentrated wort and top up water weren't mixed totally. You're just fine. You can find your OG using that site I posted above.

z987k · 09-27-2009, 07:18 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by larrysbooze

I am doing a recipe from Charles Papazian's Joy of Homebrewing. Its called Goat Scrotum Ale, and I let my buddy choose what recipe for us to use (thought the name was funny). I made the Wort today and put it in my primary. I put too much malt extract in there. I put 6 lbs of extract instead of 5 lbs. Because of this I put another half gallon-gallon of water in. The gravity is supposed to be at 1.050-1.060, but the gravity on this is 1.090.

What should I do? Is there anything? If not, what happens to this? Will there just be a lot more alcohol in it?

6lbs of DME in 5 gallons of water is 1.054 no matter how much you screw up reading your hydrometer. DME/LME and water are both finite things we can tell you an OG on without a hydrometer. Your OG is 1.054.