OG for English Bitter

I made an English bitter today, and think I have added too much water, which makes my OG way off. The only difference in the recipe I did was change one of the hops. This shouldn't affect my OG(I don't believe). I made sure the temp was correct before testing, the hydrometer looks to be in good shape. It is reading at 1.065, which is far too high as it is supposed to be between 1.032 and 1.036. Is there a fix for this?

Too much water would cause a lower OG not a larger one. Is this a partial boil recipe? Most people have issues with partial boil OGs if the wort was not mixed well enough with your mixing water. The sugary wort is heavier than the water which could cause gravity reading issues if it wasn't mixed well. There's a thread on here somewhere that discusses this in length.... Can't find it though.

I was just in the midst of replying when I saw this. I did a test with the hydrometer by adding water, and sure enough it lowered the og. Which I knew in my head, but the frustration of possibly messing the batch up over ruled my thoughts. So here goes some trial and error as I add more water. By not adding water will I have a higher abv, or will it be too bitter by not adding the water? This particular bitter has a low abv.

Before you start some trial & error, can you post your recipe? If this is an extract batch, then your OG is easily calculated and will be very close to that assuming volumes are accurate

hydrometers measure how much sugar there is in the sample of wort you pulled. If you add water, you dilute the amount of sugars are in your wort, meaning that your sample will have less. Think of it like kool-aid, if you made half a pitcher of it how sweet would it be? Now fill the pitcher up to the top without adding any more powder.... is it sweeter or less sweet? Same principal.

FERMENTABLES
3.3lb Plain LME
1lb Amber DME
SPECIALTY GRAINS
12oz 60L
HOPS
1 UK Goldings
1US Fuggles(which I switched out the original Goldings)
YEAST
WL English Ale yeast

Good to know, I didn't think of it that way, why I don't know, ha. I think it will be fine. I did add a little water which brought my OG to the correct level (1.032). We shall see. Worst case is I have a potentially weaker beer. Should still taste good.

The problem with adding more water, is you need to mix it really well to get an accurate reading. If your volume was correct (5gals), then you should've been around 1.034 and now you've diluted it. I highly recommend measuring OG before topping off and calculating from there for more accuracy
OG1 * Vol1 = OG2 * Vol2 (i.e. if you were really at 1.065, then it'd be Vol2 = 65 / 34 * 5 (or whatever volume was)

Maybe you read into what I typed differently than how I meant it to come out. My OG at 5gal was 1.065. This is high for this particular beer. I only added water after I realizing the reading was high. For some reason it was high, I don't know why. I stirred everything well when adding water, and continued to check until I reached a more correct reading. I am reading at 1.032, which is in range. Directions also say to add water if needed to get in range.

it is impossible for it to have been 1.065 @5gal with those ingredients, it wasn't fully mixed thus the high reading. if you continued to top off beyond 5gals, then you've diluted it

I am able to read, and I followed the recipe, I mixed everything well, then took a reading. I am just letting you know that this is what I read. Not saying it is proper for such ingredients, that is why I asked the question. I didn't just up and add a bunch of water and call it good. I also read on the directions to add water until you get that reading, so I will take it as such, thanks.

sorry if it's coming off otherwise, I'm not suggesting you can't read or followed it incorrectly. I believe you got the reading you did. What I am saying is that it is more difficult to mix wort & water than you think, which is why I don;t suggest adding water til you get the desired reading. With extracts you're dealing with a known amount of sugar, so the only way the OG could be off is if the volume was incorrect or it isn't completely mixed.

Gotcha. That makes sense. Oh well, I just have a weak flavored beer. If it is too weak maybe I can make it into a shandy for summer. We shall see.

Also, are you sure your hydrometer is calibrated (I.e. it reads 1.000 in water)?

And honestly, If your OG was in fact 1.065 and you diluted to 1.032 (which is half of the OG) you would have needed do double the water. So if you had 5 gallons of 1.065 wort, you would need to dilute to 10 gallons to get 1.032. Does not seem possible, unless you had 10 gallons!

I check my hydrometer before measuring every time. I am just letting you know what I did, I added approx 1/2gal to my ferementer, stirred everything for a bit, then I cooled it to 58* I checked it with the hydrometer and it read 1.034. I had to do this a few times, so the 1/2 gal wasn't added all at once. I know it sounds strange, but this is what is happening.

dummybrewman said:

I check my hydrometer before measuring every time. I am just letting you know what I did, I added approx 1/2gal to my ferementer, stirred everything for a bit, then I cooled it to 58* I checked it with the hydrometer and it read 1.034. I had to do this a few times, so the 1/2 gal wasn't added all at once. I know it sounds strange, but this is what is happening.

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Sounds downright impossible to me. You can't dilute 1.065 wort to 1.034 by adding a half gallon to 5 gallons of wort. Either way, I think your original reading was incorrect

How many gallons are in the fermenter now?

Boy, I feel like asking questions is the wrong thing to do on a forum designed to help people with brewing. TCGOOSE, just under 6 gallons. However at this rate the way everyone is sounding I should just dump it out and forget about it, and not bother asking questions.

Nobody is hammering you or anything, they are just trying to help. Everyone is just saying the same thing that when you took your hydrometer sample you must not have mixed your wort completely so you got a hydrometer reading that did not accurately reflect the specific gravity of the wort. The beer is going to turn out just fine, but we are just trying to zero in on why your reading came out the way it did. Sounds like everything is good, just next time you'll know to give it a strong stir (good for aeration too if it has cooled) before you take your gravity sample.

dummybrewman said:

Boy, I feel like asking questions is the wrong thing to do on a forum designed to help people with brewing. TCGOOSE, just under 6 gallons. However at this rate the way everyone is sounding I should just dump it out and forget about it, and not bother asking questions.

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Don't think anyone is suggesting you just dump it and stop asking questions.

What the previous posters are trying to impress on you are a few valid points in an attempt to try to help you and increase your understanding of the situation you had/have.

With the amount of fermentables, that your recipe consists of, in 5 gallons of wort your OG WILL work out to somewhere close to 1.032. That is a given. However, due to the viscosity of LME it is sometimes really difficult to fully integrate the two liquids (wort from the kettle and top off water) of differing densities. This means that sometimes the sample you pull to measure could contain the higher density wort, which would seem has happened in your case, giving a reading much higher than the expected OG. If the 5 gallons of wort had a more even distribution of the fermentables your OG reading would have probably been much closer to the estimated value.

By the further addition of a 1/2 to a gallon of water your actual OG has probably decreased by something like 0.002 to 0.005 points so what should have been a, roughly 3.3% beer might well come in around 2.8% (according to beercalculus)

In your 2nd last post you said "I added approx 1/2gal to my ferementer, stirred everything for a bit, then I cooled it to 58* I checked it with the hydrometer and it read 1.034"


Was your original hydro sample cooled to around 60 f before you took the reading?? If not, that would have also contributed to an overly high reading.

I always cool to correct temp, as the hydrometer does not read accurately if higher than 60f. I am grateful for the help for sure, just the attitudes associated with such posts are a little dissatisfying. Maybe I was reading them with hostility and frustration, either way it is something to learn from. Thanks for the help.

Just thought about this, did I just make an English Bitter Light? Ha.

I think you did! It'll be great I'm sure!

Most definitely a light beer. Just entered secondary today. Sucks to have spent a bit of time making this beer to find out it is not so great. Drinkable for sure, but lacking flavor. I can laugh and use this as a lesson, but it sure was frustrating realizing I screwed it up. Oh well.

dummybrewman said:

Most definitely a light beer. Just entered secondary today. Sucks to have spent a bit of time making this beer to find out it is not so great. Drinkable for sure, but lacking flavor. I can laugh and use this as a lesson, but it sure was frustrating realizing I screwed it up. Oh well.

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It could just be green. Give it some more time. It could turn out great.

When you are ready to bottle, make up your priming solution using a molasses rich, brown sugar, and maybe go heavier on weight used than is usual for standard carbonation in a bitter. The priming sugar will give you a bump of 0.1 to 0.2% ABV, or so, and you'll get a very slight residual flavour from the unfermentable molasses which should kick the body up a touch.

Thanks Ogri, I will definitely do that. This should help the beer come together a little better.

Also I'm wondering, when I check the gravity before putting into secondary, it finished out at proper FG, would that be correct given the fact that I ended up diluting the beer?

dummybrewman said:

Also I'm wondering, when I check the gravity before putting into secondary, it finished out at proper FG, would that be correct given the fact that I ended up diluting the beer?

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It's definitely possible. Even though the beer was a bit diluted there will still be the same amount of unfermentable, residual, sugars, that the yeast can't convert, as there would have been if undiluted.

That makes sense. Thanks, I'll be sure to let you know how it all ends up.

So in the end, I dumped the beer. I ended up letting it sit in the fermenter too long, with wide ranging temperatures. Long story short it tasted like rubber and down the drain it went. On to the next brew! I have made a few in between, but have had no time to spill details, except for a 3rd place ribbon.