worried that my OG is too high...

I brewed my first beer, a brown ale, from p. 92 of Randy Mosher's book: "Radical Brewing." I used a mini-mash recipe, whereby i steeped grains before adding dry amber extract, and then the hops, etc. In his recipe, Mosher lists a "Gravity: 1.06" but does not specify if that is a final gravity or an original gravity.

Anyways, everything went OK I think, but I am wondering about my OG reading of 1.123. I adjusted it for temperature, so I know I didn't mess that up. I spoke with two experienced brewers about this OG - one guy said: "Sounds good to me. you have plenty of sugar in there for the yeast to chew through." Another fella said: "Wow. That is a really high OG. You might very well have a very thick and sugary beer. Yeast won't chew past an OG of about 1.09."

If Mosher was intending to give me the OG at 1.06, then I am way off, huh?

Any advice?

I'm thinking that the 1.123 is not accurate. If you used a "normal" recipe, you wouldn't have an OG like that. That's even higher than wines.

I'm guessing that either the sample wasn't mixed up well with the top off water, or that you somehow got a heavier sample.

If you post your recipe, we can tell you want your OG should be, approximately. I'd think that the Mosher OG would be pretty accurate.

Recipe:

6.0 amber dry extract
2.0 biscuit/amber malt
1.0 medium crystal

.75 northern brewer hops for 90 min
.5 northdown hops for 20 min

yield is 5 gal
gravity: 1.067
alcohaul/vol: 5-5.8%


mashed the biscuit and crystal at 157 degrees for 45 min in 3 quarts of water. then i added 2 gal of water and the amber extract, then the hop schedule.

I remember that i did mix up my fresh water and wort when i put it in the fermenting bucket. perhaps not enough, but i think i did do it sufficiently.

Here is one idea- when i did the mini-mash, i kept pushing the grains around with my spoon, attempting to push out more flavor. there was no direction on this in the recipe. Perhaps i actually over-extracted too much sugar in my mini-mash?

RyanT said:

Recipe:

6.0 amber dry extract
2.0 biscuit/amber malt
1.0 medium crystal

.75 northern brewer hops for 90 min
.5 northdown hops for 20 min

yield is 5 gal
gravity: 1.067
alcohaul/vol: 5-5.8%


mashed the biscuit and crystal at 157 degrees for 45 min in 3 quarts of water. then i added 2 gal of water and the amber extract, then the hop schedule.

I remember that i did mix up my fresh water and wort when i put it in the fermenting bucket. perhaps not enough, but i think i did do it sufficiently.

Here is one idea- when i did the mini-mash, i kept pushing the grains around with my spoon, attempting to push out more flavor. there was no direction on this in the recipe. Perhaps i actually over-extracted too much sugar in my mini-mash?

Click to expand...

No, you can't over extract sugar. I mean, the sugar that is there is all that is there. There isn't any more present than what the grain can provide. An 1.123 OG is impossible with that amount of grain and extract in 5 gallons. You can always check the reading again, if in doubt.

More than likely you didn;t thoroughly stir the wort with the top off water, It takes 5 minutes of heavy stirring to full integrate the two together. It's a common beginner mistake. We get these kinda posts on a daily basis with first time extract brewers.

Your real OG is around 1.069 with those ingredients for a 5 gallon batch.

Trust me, it will be fine. Use 1.069 or 1.067 as you og and take you fg as normal.

1.067 sounds about right for a 5 gallon batch (I got 1.069). However, from the looks of the steps you took you did 3 quarts + 2 gallons. Which is 2.75 gallons. And for that amount of fermentables 1.126 is what I come up with. Which isn't far from your 1.123. Sounds too me like your recipe was for 5 gallons but you only made a 2.75 gal batch.

EDIT: If you did in fact add water to get to 5 gallons perhaps your sample was taken before adding the extra water?

YooperBrew said:

No, you can't over extract sugar. I mean, the sugar that is there is all that is there. There isn't any more present than what the grain can provide. An 1.123 OG is impossible with that amount of grain and extract in 5 gallons. You can always check the reading again, if in doubt.

Click to expand...

I ran it through Beermsith- the highest you can expect is 1.067 in a 5 gallon batch.

There's no way you got 1.123 from that recipe. You had to have undermixed and pulled a heavy sample. Did you measure before topping off to 5 gallons?

I'm coming up with 1.069 for an OG, based on a 75% eff. in Beer Alchemy.

Everyone- thank you very much for your replies. I know for certain that i made 5 gallons of liquid, and then took a reading after adding the water, so that solves that part.

here is the problem, which i got from your quick replies - i only stirred the wort and new water together for about 10-20 seconds. The poster above said that I should stir for 5 min! So most likely i got a bogus reading because of this.

i will now sit back and enjoy a microbrew, in place of having a homebrew (which i will not have for another few weeks).

I'd have guessed that a 10-20 second stir would have helped more than not at all. Go figure. I'm sure it will all work out in the end though. Good luck.

I've never stirred for anywhere close to 5 minutes and my OGs have always come out very close to expected - but I do put 2/3 of my top-off water in first, vigorously pour the wort into it and then top-off with the last 1/2-1 gallon. Then I stir for about 60 seconds, check temp and take my OG.

That said, I agree that it is quite likely that one way or another, you got a very heavy sample because as pointed out, you can't get that high of a gravity from your recipe as posted.

here is another possible reason why my reading is goofy - i didn't have a turkey baster to extract a sample into the hydrometer cylinder, so i just dropped the sanitized hydrometer into the plastic fermentor bucket and looked at it.

RyanT said:

here is another possible reason why my reading is goofy - i didn't have a turkey baster to extract a sample into the hydrometer cylinder, so i just dropped the sanitized hydrometer into the plastic fermentor bucket and looked at it.

Click to expand...

That works, and I've done it in a pinch. I'm sure it's just that all the top off water and fermentables weren't mixed well. It's no problem, though- the yeast can still find all the sugars, and they'll mix it up well for you!

update- just took my final gravity reading after 7 days - i am at 1.02. I am good to go.