dummkauf

Recipes 

ok, batch number 4 is in primary, a wildflower wheat, and the brew night went very smoothly, except for the fact that I forgot to take my OG before pitching my yeast. I shook the carboy to aerate, pitched yeast, shook a couple more times, and then moved to my closet. As I was getting ready to put the blowoff tube into the carboy, I realized that I did not take a gravity reading!!! so I dropped my wine thief in the bucket of star-san that my blowoff tube end was about to go into, and stole a sample. OG is 1.057 and BeerSmith predicted an OG of 1.056, so I'm thinking the pitching before taking a gravity reading isn't a big deal.

Everything I've read has always said to take the OG before pitching, but since beersmith perfectly predicted my OG, is this really that big of a deal and is my OG reading off?

Figures that this is also the first brew I've made where I've had homebrew to enjoy while brewing it

earwig

Recipes 

You are fine. As long as you did it not long after pitching, the yeast will have no effect. Some people do it this way all the time with a small sample in a separate container called a satellite... This way you can check the gravity along the way without opening the fermenter; I question it's accuracy though.

dummkauf

Recipes 

No, I took it within 10 minutes of pitching(hadn't even gotten the blow off tube in yet).

Why do you question the accuracy if there's no issues with doing it this way??? I'm confused.

earwig

Recipes 

I question the accuracy of the satellite sample because I think fermentation happens at a different rate in a much larger quantity/different envionment.

bigbeer

Recipes 

I am actually having this same problem, except I took my OG about 10-12 hours after pitching yeast, is there a way to get a semi-accurate number?