Missed by 30 points. What to do?

I just finished brewing a 2.5 gallon clone of Brown Shugga and missed my OG by 30 points! I'm not sure what happened but I'm not sure how to fix it. I have some light DME on hand. I thought about boiling some of that and mixing it in with my wort, but I'm not sure how to figure up how much I need to use. Any help would be much appreciated.

Whats ur anticpated OG?

hawgwild81 said:

I just finished brewing a 2.5 gallon clone of Brown Shugga and missed my OG by 30 points! I'm not sure what happened but I'm not sure how to fix it. I have some light DME on hand. I thought about boiling some of that and mixing it in with my wort, but I'm not sure how to figure up how much I need to use. Any help would be much appreciated.

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HOLY COW! How can you do that? Did you not crush the grain or what. I have never heard of such a thing. 30 points? Man I have a ton of questions..
When and where did you check your gravity?
Did you stir before your gravity sample was taken?.
what was the recipe?
Have you tested your hydrometer?
what was your volume?
just to ask a few


Yes DME or LME is going to be your friend.

Cheers
Jay

Pratzie said:

Whats ur anticpated OG?

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1.099 was my anticipated 1.070 was my actual.

Jaybird said:

HOLY COW! How can you do that? Did you not crush the grain or what. I have never heard of such a thing. 30 points? Man I have a ton of questions..
When and where did you check your gravity?
Did you stir before your gravity sample was taken?.
what was the recipe?
Have you tested your hydrometer?
what was your volume?
just to ask a few

Yes DME or LME is going to be your friend.

Cheers
Jay

Click to expand...

I have no idea what happened! This has never happened to me before. The hydrometer is fine. I tested at 84 degrees and yes I stirred it. It was a 2.5 gal batch.

hawgwild81 said:

I have no idea what happened! This has never happened to me before. The hydrometer is fine. I tested at 84 degrees and yes I stirred it. It was a 2.5 gal batch.

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84 deg sample can be part of the problem. I am not a big fan of doing temp corrections. I don't find them to be accurate some will disagree but that's just me. The hydrometer is calibrated at 60deg.

Is this before the boil or after the boil?

Cheers
Jay

Did you correct your hydrometer reading for temp? Your problem could be bigger than you think.

Dry extract is about 44 points per pound per gallon, liquid is about 36.

So, for 2.5 gallons, liquid you need about 2 lbs, dry you need about 1.7 lbs.

Jaybird said:

84 deg sample can be part of the problem. I am not a big fan of doing temp corrections. I don't find them to be accurate some will disagree but that's just me. The hydrometer is calibrated at 60deg.

Is this before the boil or after the boil?

Cheers
Jay

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This was after the boil and yes I corrected for temp.

Doongie said:

Did you correct your hydrometer reading for temp? Your problem could be bigger than you think.

Dry extract is about 44 points per pound per gallon, liquid is about 36.

So, for 2.5 gallons, liquid you need about 2 lbs, dry you need about 1.7 lbs.

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Cool thanks!

Is this an AG batch or extract or partial? Just a suggestion. I know it wont help on this beer but start taking a hydrometer reading after the mash just before you start to boil and make all your corrections at that time. Then you don't have to worry about sanitizing any DME you simply add it before the boil if needed.

Cheers
Jay

Jaybird said:

Is this an AG batch or extract or partial? Just a suggestion. I know it wont help on this beer but start taking a hydrometer reading after the mash just before you start to boil and make all your corrections at that time. Then you don't have to worry about sanitizing any DME you simply add it before the boil if needed.

Cheers
Jay

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It was all grain. I definitely will start doing that from now on. I've gotten in the bad habit of not doing that.

I'd suggest u pick up a refractometer too. U can find them cheap on amazon for about 20-30 bucks but they are great for checking the gravity of the different runnings in all grain, which lets me know if im on the right track or not before i start the boil. It takes 2-3 drops at most and most of them will auto correct for temp after u let it sit on the glass for 30 seconds.

I just had this happen to me today on a Pale Ale, I went from an efficiency normally around 71-73 all the way down to a 49. Needless to say I was baffled. My 5.4 ABV went down to a 4.1 ABV. I don't think it was the crush on the grain, my LBHS does an awesome job. My strike water was about .5 qts too much on accident and then my lautering rate was too fast but I didn't catch it in time. Would either of those cause such a drop in efficiency? Now I'm at the cross roads of either bumping up the fermentables in the primary or just living with the lower ABV.

I ended up taking 1 gallon of wort out of the Carboy, I hadn't pitched the yeast yet, and boiled the wort with 1.7lbs of light DME. This bumped my OG to 1.096 which is close enough for me. I just hope everything turns out ok. Thanks to everyone for the help.

Your hop utilization will also be a bit higher if you did the boil with the lower gravity wort, but if you like hops you should be fine.