Brew Day gone horribly wrong.

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Brewsephus

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So today I woke up early, excited to brew my first Scotch Ale. I had pulled the recipe off byo.com http://***********/stories/recipeindex/article/recipes/109-scottish-ale/2405-midnight-sun-brewing-full-curl-scotch-ale-clone
Everything was going great. I have a large brew kettle, so I did a full wort boil. Chilling went great, down to 75 degrees in 12 minutes. Transferred to primary and went to check the OG when I found out instead of being the 1.074 the recipe called for, it was 1.042. As you well know, a Wee Heavy is nothing without it's ABV, so I was nervous.
This is the second time I have used a recipe off of BYO.com and the OG has come out well short of it's mark. The first time was a an Imperial IPA that should have been 1.08 and came out 1.05.
With my chilled wort in the primary already, I frantically seared the interwebs for a solution to this problem. On the forums I found someone who said you could raise the OG of your beer 45 pts for every 1lb of DME per 1 gallon of wort. I had a little extra DME laying around so I added it to 64oz. of water, boiled it, chilled it, then added it to the primary. I was able to get the OG up to 1.060.
I'm really confused as to why I can't get these recipes up to their stated OG. Is it something that I am doing? I took very detailed notes of my processes so any questions fire away!
Why do the beer gods hate me?! How do I fix my OG problems or is the problem with the recipe, as this is the second time i've had this problem?
 
I always put recipes into Brewsmith first, with my system and assumptions, in part to see what the predicted OG will be. Doing so might help you diagnose your problem.

Are you doing extract or all-grain?
 
I'm doing extract with partial grain. The grain bill was less than 1 lb of grain, so the bulk of the fermentables are coming from the DME and LME. 6.6 lbs of liquid and 2.2 lbs of dry.
I did check my hydrometer and it is calibrated properly.
I also plugged the recipe into beertools.com recipe calculator and it showed 1.06 as the OG. I got 1.045 first time around. Didn't get 1.06 until I added an extra 1.8lbs DME.
Thoughts?
 
I was wondering if that one pound of grain was supposed to be mashed & you just steeped it? What did you do with the grains?
 
with just 6.6 lbs LME and 2.2 lbs DME you should have had an OG of 1.067 with 5 gallons. changing the recipie to a PM so beersmith will add the grain (it doesn't count grain gravity on extract) bumps you to 1.071.

If your not hitting 1.067 and your extract weight is correct, then either your hydrometer is off (or your not adjusting for temp), your water measure is off, or your not mixing your wort well enough.
 
You can use the brew builder at brewmasters warehouse as well. Every recipe I have made on there has hit it's gravities spot on
 
with just 6.6 lbs LME and 2.2 lbs DME you should have had an OG of 1.067 with 5 gallons. changing the recipie to a PM so beersmith will add the grain (it doesn't count grain gravity on extract) bumps you to 1.071.

If your not hitting 1.067 and your extract weight is correct, then either your hydrometer is off (or your not adjusting for temp), your water measure is off, or your not mixing your wort well enough.

^^^ This 100%. Something isn't being measured correctly.
 
I will check my measurement devices when I get home from work tonight. I have a sinking suspicion that this is it.
 
andys_got_it said:
By the sound of it, you managed to somewhat correct the problem. Let us know how it turns out.

Well he corrected by adding more extract. But since is doing an extract brew there is no way he should be as far off as he was. So if the amount of water was correct he is going to end up with a beer that was way stronger than intended. If his water measurement is off then he is going to end up with a beer that is out of balance because he added more extract and water but not additional hops. May turn out ok but it won't be to style
 
The bucket I was using to measure was in Imperial Gallons and not US Gallons. ::facepalm:: FML!
 
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