Troubleshooting at an IPA

I created the starter for an IPA about a week ago, couldn't get around to brew till yesterday.

During brewing, I had 2 boil overs, very short, just lost a few floating hops, nothing major.

I cooled the wort to 65deg, aerated it and poured it in a carboy to aerate it further. I took a gravity reading of 1.032 for a recipe with 8lbs of malt! Could this be from the aerating or from the fact that I took it from the top of a carboy that had been settling for about 10min it was estimated that the gravity was suppose to be ~1.070.

So I set up a blow off for it and wake up this morning 10 hours later and there is almost no activity going on inside the fermentor, very slow fermentation. Is this from the starter sitting so long?

For a batch that I had thought to be my most perfectly brewed one yet, I'm seeing anomalies. Anyone want to confirm or give me their opinions as to why things are acting the way they are?

Also I have about 4 oz of hops in the carboy from the first wort/boil/steep. If it sits at the bottom of this carboy for 2 weeks are they going to act like dry hopping? Should I rack the beer off of it sooner rather than later?

I have 3 batches currently fermenting, all using starters. The first 2 batches started fermenting within 12 hours of pitching, but the 3rd one took 24 hours. RDWADAHB.

mongrell said:

I cooled the wort to 65deg, aerated it and poured it in a carboy to aerate it further. I took a gravity reading of 1.032 for a recipe with 8lbs of malt! Could this be from the aerating or from the fact that I took it from the top of a carboy that had been settling for about 10min it was estimated that the gravity was suppose to be ~1.070.

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8lbs of grain, or 8lbs of malt extract?? 1.032 is entirely likely with all grain and a poor efficiency.

if you mean malt extract, then I think your gravity reading was simply inaccurate.

It was 8lbs liquid extract. I know 1.032 cannot be right, but I wanna know why. My hydrometer doesn't look damaged.

If your wort has settled or has been aerated can that change a reading? Even if it can, can it change it that drastically?

Low gravity with an extract recipe is usually due to not mixing it well.

Or an uncalibrated hydrometer. Are any of the bits loose in the bulb at the bottom? Do you read 1.000 in water? It's either that or poor mixing.

BrianP said:

Low gravity with an extract recipe is usually due to not mixing it well.

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+1 Stir briskly with a sanitized spoon before taking your sample. It aerates it and makes sure it is well mixed for a proper reading.

only thing I can think of that can happen to a hydrometer is that the markings move relative to the glass. If it reads 1.000 in water then I would bet that it is fine.

How could not mixing extract account for ~20 points?

cudaaar said:

How could not mixing extract account for ~20 points?

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Stratification. Low density fluid floats on top of higher density fluid.

BrianP: As fermentation proceeds, do you mix before taking a gravity reading? I never really thought about this-- how significant is stratification? 20 points worth?

There's a very good article in BYO about taking hydrometer readings. I don't have the link handy but you can probably find it easily if you google it. It goes into the nitty gritty about how best to take a reading, what causes bad readings, etc.

I'm still stuck on - How the hell did you get your wort temp down to 65degrees. I can't get mine lower than 70

Thanks BP. I've always assumed it negligible, but now I'll have to test the effect of stratification when I have some spare time.

King of Cascade said:

I'm still stuck on - How the hell did you get your wort temp down to 65degrees. I can't get mine lower than 70

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Copper coil wort chiller