Raising SG on a new brew

1EightT · 10-25-2008, 10:46 PM

Hey guys, this is my 7th batch of beer. So far all have come out quite good, so I decided to wing it a bit when I went to the home brew shop. picked out a couple lbs of complimentary grains, some LME, and a couple ounces of hops. The goal was to do a nice wheat beer (easy street, sunshine wheat, etc), but with some specialty grains. My friends all enjoy wheat beers, so it's a guaranteed win. Did everything as usual, but decided to do 3.5lbs of LME, 1oz of hops full boil, and .5 at the end along with my steeped grains. Went to check the SG and it's only 1.020. That's quite a bit lower than I would have liked. Any suggestions for getting that up a bit after the fact? I was thinking about boiling up a couple lbs of honey, letting it cool, then adding it to primary. The honey would be a complimentary flavor anyway. Any suggestions?

**Yooper** · 10-25-2008, 10:56 PM

I wouldn't do it with honey- that will thin the beer even more than a beer with 3.5 pounds of extract would be on its own. I'd go back and buy a bag of DME or wheat DME (3 pounds), boil it up in as little water as possible, cool it and add it to the fermenter. You can boil it for just a few minutes, just so it's dissolved and sanitized.

Three pounds of DME would get you 1.051 added to this batch. Three pounds of LME would give you an OG of 1.047. That would be more reasonable, I think. (Two pounds of honey, without any additional extract, would give you 1.039 for the OG for this batch).

What kind of wheat did you use in this wheat beer?