Thick Wort

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Vismich

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Last night I brewed a batch that was an experiment recipe I just made up using dry extract.

I started with about 10 qts of water and added 4lbs of wheat malt extract at the boil. At 20 mins left in the boil, I added another 3lbs of dry malt.

The wort became very thick, and looked like lava. I couldn't get it to break and did have one small boil over, which had never happend...

Anyway, I finished the last 20 mins by constantly removing it from the heat.

gravity was 1.09, which was higher than most beers I've brewed.

In the future, should I add more water, less dme, both?

Also dies 1.09 sound high? Should I ferment longer now?
 
You only boiled 2.5G of water for a partial boil I am assuming? Over the time of the boil I will assume you also lost close to 1G of water to evaporation? Did you add any top off water to achieve a 5G batch???? By adding the water your OG would have then dropped to an appropriate level for what I assume you wanted to try and brew.

How much wort is in the primary? Something is missing here?
 
Beersmith man that's all I have to say. Beersmith has baled me out of a lot of water volume problems. Sounds to me though that you just didn't use enough water in your boil for a five gallon batch.
 
Did you take the gravity reading before or after adding the water and if after, did you really mix it up. It is very difficult to get a thorough mix and sometimes the readings will be off otherwise. In other words, if you read a lot of the dense wort the reading will be higher than expected and if you got a lot of the water the reading would be lower.
 
Yea. I've been doing this for about a year, so im pretty familiar with the process. I took the gravity after the water was put in.

Most of my IPAs start at 1.06, so I wasn't terribly floored by 1.09. That said, will that be a problem? Will it be drinkable?

What is beersmith?
 
As the posters said, measure og AFTER you mix the wort with water to the correct amount. OG should ballpark around 1.055 with that amount DME in 5 gallons. The OG of the concentrated partial boil tells you...nothing.

DME is not easy to do in a small pot with little head space as the DME floats on the top. Get a pot where you can boil at least 3-3.5 gallons or use LME, which sinks to the bottom and makes it easier to stir in if you only have a tiny bit of room.

Lastly, read the sticky at the top of the forums titled "EXTRACT BREWING HOW TO". Many of these and other questions are already explained or answered for you.
Cheers. Pez.

EDIT - didn't see you already posted, but you didn't read your OG right as 7 pounds DME in 5 gallons will not get you 1.09. This could be because it is often hard to get a correct reading with partail boils and top offs as the water and wort are hard to peferctly mix.
 
Yea. I've been doing this for about a year, so im pretty familiar with the process. I took the gravity after the water was put in.

Most of my IPAs start at 1.06, so I wasn't terribly floored by 1.09. That said, will that be a problem? Will it be drinkable?

What is beersmith?

Yes, most likely the mix was not thorough and you got an off reading as a result. Beersmith is brewing software that many people use to manage their recipes, calculations, water volumes etc.

http://www.beersmith.com
 
If you boiled 7 pounds of DME and ended up with five gallons of wort in your fermenter you will be fine as far a gravity goes. It is not thick beer.

Pez.
 
Vismich said:
So you think I should be good? Worst case I suppose it will just be thick beer?

The beer won't be thick, the wort was thick because you did not boil enough water for the amount of DME you used, the beer will be fine
 
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