Problems hitting starting gravity

My starting gravity in 70 degree wort from extract recipes is consistently low. For example, I brewed a Hefe last night and starting was supposed to be 1.058 and I came in at 1.046. However, after fermentation my final gravity is always dead on.

I would assume that with an extract kit, it is extremely hard to mess your gravity up that bad, so there is only one thing I can think of which is that my 2 gallons of wort is not completely mixed with my 3 gallons of water that I top off with which throws the reading off.

This got me thinking that if the mixture isn't complete, then the temperature throughout could be spotty as well and I pictured myself pouring my poor little yeasties into what I thought was a spot-on 70F when really just below the surface it was higher/lower.

Anywho, once add your wort to the bucket, do you stir it up to mix/aerate? I've always just sloshed my wort from my brewing kettle into the bucket to make it splash into the water on the way in but after I do the actual dumping I've never done any additional stirring, etc. I always figured that was enough, but now I'm starting to think I should stir it all up really well just before pitching the yeast. Thoughts? Thanks.

You will definitely want to mix everything up. I am an A.G. brewer with plenty of extract experience. I never understood why they had you add water at the end as I just add everything at the beginning and boil down to my target water level. This way all the water is sterilized and there is no extra step. This way you could boil down to your target gravity as well if you had a refractometer.

We get this question 3-4 times every day, so you're not alone. And in reality, nothing's wrong.

It's a pretty common issue for ANYONE topping off with water in the fermenter (and that includes partial mashes, extract or all grain revcipes) to have an error in reading the OG...In fact, it is actually nearly impossible to mix the wort and the top off water in a way to get an accurate OG reading...

Brewers get a low reading if they get more of the top off water than the wort, conversely they get a higher number if they grabbed more of the extract than the top off water in their sample.

When I am doing an extract with grain recipe I make sure to stir for a minimum of 5 minutes (whipping up a froth to aerate as well) before I draw a grav sample and pitch my yeast....It really is an effort to integrate the wort with the top off water...This is a fairly common new brewer issue we get on here...unless you under or over topped off or the final volume for the kit was 5 gallons and you topped off to 5.5, then the issue, sorry to say, is "operator error"

More than likely your true OG is really what it's supposed to be. And it will mix itself fine during fermentation.

And just use the number it says in the instructions as the true OG, because it will be.

That often happens with extract recipes, or any time you're adding top off water. If it's not mixed thoroughly, you'll get a flawed sample. But since it's an extract recipe, don't worry as long as you topped off to the recommended level in the recipe. It's extremely hard to miss OG on an extract brew.

Or listen to Revvy! I knew that one was coming, man!!!

Cool, thanks guys. I'll be sure to whip it up a little better in the future. I'd assume that the extra aeration would do a lot to help the yeast take off too, which I'd view as more important than getting an accurate reading.

Overall, I'm really getting the extract process nailed down. I cooled my wort and hit 70F on the head within about 20 minutes last night. Smoothest "wort-cooling" process that I've had so far, and now that I know to give it a little extra stir I'm already looking forward to my next brew night to improve my process even more.

Just did my first batch (weizen) and it was a partial boil as well, topped off with 3 gals of cold water. I used spring water I purchased straight out of the bottle to top off and cool, so hopefully that's not an issue. At any rate I took an OG reading at 84F and mine was high (1.052). With the correction at that temp I think I'm looking at 1.055 if I understand how to adjust correctly. I made a noob mistake I guess and took the reading right in the primary. I really stirred it up good getting it cooled down prior the reading. I assumed I did something wrong to throw off the OG reading.

Made another noob error and pitched at 84F, although the kit directions led me to believe that was fine. Mine was done bubbling with 24hrs and I've yet to get a FG reading (42 hrs in now).

I figured I'd ask this question in this thread since it relates to it. Since I'm still doing partial boils, I typically top off to a little more than 5 gallons to account for trub. If I top off to the 5 gallon point, I won't actually be getting 5 gallons to drink. This weekend, I made BM's centennial blonde and topped off to about 5.25 gallons. Is this ok, or did I set myself up for a lower than intended SG?

kyle6286 said:

I figured I'd ask this question in this thread since it relates to it. Since I'm still doing partial boils, I typically top off to a little more than 5 gallons to account for trub. If I top off to the 5 gallon point, I won't actually be getting 5 gallons to drink. This weekend, I made BM's centennial blonde and topped off to about 5.25 gallons. Is this ok, or did I set myself up for a lower than intended SG?

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I always start a little over the 5 gallon mark so that when I lose some racking, taking hydrometer samples, etc that I end up with about 5 gallons when I am done. I think you'll be fine...the most that an extra 1/4th gallon is going to make can't be much more than a couple 1/10ths of a % ABV.

I did and it was a little higher, but my wort was warmer than 60 degrees and I may not have mixed the top off water well enough. I'm assuming the sample I took was just more concentrated.

If you use an aeration stone, and mount it on a wand (like a piece of racking cane or ss tube like the willaim's brewing setup) you can use a combination of the o2 coming out of the stone and the wand itself as a whip to mix up the wort and water into a healthy froth. You're mixing the wort and aerating it at the same time.

I'm reading a lot on here about the problems of pitching the yeast if the temperature is too high (e.g. over 80*F). Is there any harm in pitching the yeast if it's too cold (e.g. 50 - 60*F)?

the_Sliver said:

I'm reading a lot on here about the problems of pitching the yeast if the temperature is too high (e.g. over 80*F). Is there any harm in pitching the yeast if it's too cold (e.g. 50 - 60*F)?

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Dormancy of the yeast if it is below the snooze temp of the yeast. But once it goes up, they'll wake up. But you may get a bit of a lag time.