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bentl1jb

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Hey guys. I just put a clone of blue moon into secondary and the alcohol content was very high. Like 12% instead of 5.5%. The recipe called for candy sugar and we used corn sugar. We also added extra orange peels. Do u think we messed up the hydrometer readings or is this possible?
 
What was your OG and last check for gravity. I'm not sure of the sugar conversions but if you used powdered corn sugar like you use for priming instead of granulated candy sugar... You may have put way too much in..
 
It was a powdered sugar and I put in half of a lb...I dissolved it in water on the stove and added spices before adding it to the last 2 minutes of the boil. I also used white labs 400 Belgian wit yeast. For the yeast I just dumped the bottle into the primary fermenter
 
My OG started at 1.1 and ended at 1.01

That's just not possible. the FG of 1.010 is possible, but the OG of 1.100 is not. Unless you added a ridiculous amount of sugar, that is!

There must be an error in measurement. If you tell us your recipe, we can calculate the actual amount of sugars in there, and give you a good guestimate as to the actual OG.
 
What was your full recipe?

At an OG of 1.1 there is no way you would have an ABV of 5.5%, and the half pound of sugar wouldn't cause that large of a disparity; maybe if the recipe called for 6 oz of candi sugar and you added 6 lbs of corn sugar instead.

Edit: i'm guessing a partial boil extract recipe and they took their OG when the wort wasn't fully mixed with the water which could give a higher OG than it really was.
 
I actually don't think it should be that big of a difference in gravity. Corn sugar only adds a few extra gravity points than candy sugar by weight, all other things being equal. I'd guess the hydrometer reading was off, but if you post up the full recipe then we can be sure.
 
It calls for .5 lb candi sugar and that's how much corn sugar I added. Must have messed up the original gravity. The recipe says it is supposed to be 5.6% and other than the differing sugars I followed the recipe. 4.7 lbs of liquid malt extract
 
Did you do a partial boil? say only 3 gal in a 5 gal batch?

Reason why I asked is if you took your OG before adding the top off water or grabbed from the bottom of the fermentor before the wort and water were fully mixed you could end up with an off reading.

Also did you correct for temp and have you calibrated your hydrometer?
 
It calls for .5 lb candi sugar and that's how much corn sugar I added. Must have messed up the original gravity. The recipe says it is supposed to be 5.6% and other than the differing sugars I followed the recipe. 4.7 lbs of liquid malt extract

If you're sure of your water and weight measurements and such, then it must have been a mistake with the gravity. The corn sugar might have raised the OG a couple points more than the candy sugar would have, but not that much.
 
Seconding a misreading of the hydrometer, broken hydrometer, somethin. A quick wit recipe through beersmith yielding 5.6% ABV (like you originally said) should have an OG of 1.053, replacing your Candi sugar with corn sugar only bumps it up to 1.054.
 

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