Where did I go wrong?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

caustin

Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2012
Messages
17
Reaction score
0
So, I just finished up my second round of brewing. First was a Brewer's Best American light. This time I was doing a fat tire clone out of BYO with the recipe here.
The only difference is I used Yooper's advice of a different boil schedule of 60min-will, 20 min-Fuggle, 15 min-Irish Moss and the rest of the fuggle at flameout. Found here.
I thought everything went great. Smelled great, no boil overs, cooled down relatively quickly, but when I took the OG I had a 1.070. The target was supposed to be 1.05. I only have the 6.5 gallon Ale Pale and the 5 gallon better bottle. So, what's the best way to bring down the OG? Or, should I just leave it and let the beer do it's thing? :mug:
 
when u made your beer did you do a full 6.5 gallon brew.. or did u boil a 2-3 gallons of water and put it in the carboy and then make the wort out of 3-4gallons and then mixed it up in the carboy? cause if this is what u did then probly u just did not get all the sugars mixed up enoff to get a real reading..

but even if u did not do this .. just let it be.. it will be fine.. it will just have a little bit more of a kick
 
Unless you seriously undershot on your batch volume you shouldn't have any real worries. Have you definitely got at least 5 Gallons of wort in primary??
 
cause if this is what u did then probly u just did not get all the sugars mixed up enoff to get a real reading..

Yeah, I was kinda leaning towards that but if DME was added at the beginning there's no way it wouldn't mix during an hour of boiling. Or is there? I know that the late addition LME and lack of thorough mixing can lead to some pretty high OG readings.
 
Well, I only did a 2.75 gallon boil due to an electric stove and a smaller pot. I added the DME at the beginner. I didn't see any clumps when I moved the wort into the fermentor. Could I take a reading tomorrow morning and have an accurate reading?
 
And one more, I definitely have 5 gallons in the fermentor. At least it's a touch over the 5 gallon mark on the bucket.
 
So you had 2.75 gallons of wort from your pot and added that to the fermenter with top up water to reach your volume of 5 gallons?? If taht's the case it's definitely possible that you didn't manage to get the two liquids to mix thoroughly and your SG reading was made up of, mostly, the denser of the two. In which case you needn't worry.:ban::mug:
 
Yeah, I was kinda leaning towards that but if DME was added at the beginning there's no way it wouldn't mix during an hour of boiling. Or is there? I know that the late addition LME and lack of thorough mixing can lead to some pretty high OG readings.

I think what he was getting at is the possibility that the top up water did not fully mix with the boiled wort, which could give a high gravity reading as the sweeter liquid would tend to be at the bottom of the vessel where the testing sample is drawn from.
 
Sounds like a good deal then. I'll just not worry about the og then and look for my fg sometime next week.
 
Back
Top