Low gravity (1.03) on Northern Brewer's Grand Cru partial mash kit

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m_stodd

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Last night I put together Northern Brewer's Grand Cru lambic kit. I followed it to a 'T' using the correct amounts of water, hitting my temperatures... But in the end when I added water to get it to 5 gallons, and took a hydro reading, it came out to 1.03 at 76 deg. Fahrenheit and the instructions said it should be 1.045. After feeling sad, I didn't pitch my yeast starter thinking I might dump it and try again tonight.

I did notice while sparging that a bunch of the grain wasn't cracked open. I could open up pieces and see all the goodness inside.

I'm curious what went wrong, and what I should do. Most of the responses in threads like this are "don't dump it, see how it turns out". I don't want to tie up a fermenter and wait a year just to see how a mistake turns out.
 
>>I did notice while sparging that a bunch of the grain wasn't cracked open. I could open up pieces and see all the goodness inside.

Translation = Bad Crush



The other thing to consider is did you mix the top off water in very well with the wort? If not, the gravity reading will certainly be off.
 
First off, I'd be certain you didn't just get a bad gravity reading. Shake, stir or wisk the everliving crap out of the wort to make sure it is completely mixed before you take the reading.

If that doesn't change anything, you could technically put it back in the kettle and boil it down to hit the 1.045 OG. FAR from ideal, and you are going to lose about 20-30% of your volume, but better than dumping.

FYI, wort will sour and go bad pretty quickly without alcohol in it, so act fast no matter what you do!!

Good luck!
 
First off, I'd be certain you didn't just get a bad gravity reading. Shake, stir or wisk the everliving crap out of the wort to make sure it is completely mixed before you take the reading.

If that doesn't change anything, you could technically put it back in the kettle and boil it down to hit the 1.045 OG. FAR from ideal, and you are going to lose about 20-30% of your volume, but better than dumping.

FYI, wort will sour and go bad pretty quickly without alcohol in it, so act fast no matter what you do!!

Good luck!

You were correct. I shook it and that got me to 1.032 so I thought 'eh, must have read it wrong the first time.' Then I kicked it's ass with a spaghetti server thingie, and it got up to 1.043.

Thanks
 

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