Low initial hydrometer reading

As of this afternoon my first brew is in primary (Scottish Light Ale). Whew, I feel like a cigarette! (kidding, I don't smoke)

I do have a question however. The starting gravity measured low at 1.031 when the recipe says it should be 1.038-42. But I did take the reading after I aerated the wort, did that screw it up? Or was it something else?

It was an extract kit fyi. I have all my times recorded down if that will help you guys in coming up with answers. I'm just wondering if there's a generally newbie mistake that I probably committed.

Thanks in advance for all the help!

Did you do a full wort boil or did you do a partial boil and add top-up water in the fermenter? If you went the second route, it's likely that it just wasn't completely mixed together causing your wort to have pockets of higher and lower gravity. It's not a big deal. Your beer will still turn out fine.

you can check the hydrometer by taking a reading of just water. should be very close to one.

did you add sugar?

It was a partial boil and I did just check the hydrometer. I did it in the tube it came in and I tried to keep it off the sides as best I could so near as I could tell it's reading alright, maybe just a bit on the low side.

Sugar was added also!

Also, don't forget that hydrometers are generally accurate at 60* and you must compensate for temperatures higher than 60*. More info here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Hydrometer

Ok, major buzz kill. I just realized I added the brown sugar... however I left out the malto-dextrin. My god am I learning disabled. (Insert multiple curses here).

Is there anything I can do now? I'm guessing not and my beer just won't taste right. Damn am I bummed.

maybe stir in the other sugar now? it will probably turn out alright. at least by my low standards!

Alright, so I got home from a dinner formal I had tonight and to my suprise/delight I heard my blow off bubbling happily away.

I did still in the malto-dextrin, figuring it couldn't hurt. After 15 min it started bubbling again in the blow-off. This makes me feel a bit better.

I hope this post is coherent as I have had many big beers tonight, as always your imput is appreciated! Thanks fellas!

To answer your earlier Q, you can add the extra sugars late. Just mix it in a little water and boil it to sanitize it. Then cool and add. As you have found, you can just dump it in, but you increase the risk of infection.

Well dump it in I did, oop.

Generally speaking when are the first signs that your batch is infected?

EDIT: Nevermind guys. I'll just search for it, thanks anyhow!

hostileNabusive said:

Generally speaking when are the first signs that your batch is infected?

Click to expand...

My post was meant to inform, not to make you worry. This is one of those things like driving without a seat belt. Bad things don't happen frequently, but when they do the consequences far outweigh the tiny effort necessary to prevent them.

Odds are better than excellent that you did no harm. And even if you did, what's done is done and no amount of worrying will fix it. What you need to do next is to RDWHAHB and just make a mental note for next time...