1.070 sg?

I brewed Midwest's California Common kit today(extract), and for some reason 2 different hydrometers said the SG was 1.070 @ 72F. The recipe says it should be around 1.045-1.048, so what could cause it to be so high? Is it really that high? The only modification to the recipe was the addition of irish moss 15 min before the end of the boil.

I'd guess you did a partial boil and topped off. When you do that, it's VERY difficult to get the water and wort mixed thoroughly. You usually either get a low reading (from mainly water) or a high reading from mainly wort. If you use an extract kit and make the volume it's intended for, your OG pretty much has to be what they tell you it is.

no partial boil.. I put all 6# of the LME after steeping the grains, before the boil. You could be right on not mixing it thoroughly. The reason I have 2 hydrometers is that the older one was giving me consistently low readings. Today they both ready the same in the test jar.

By "partial boil" I meant boiling less than the full volume of wort and adding more water after the boil. Did you do that?

ah, yes.. What I boiled was around 2 gallons, the rest was filtered cold tap water

We get this question 3-4 times every day, so you're not alone. And in reality, nothing's wrong.

It's a pretty common issue for ANYONE topping off with water in the fermenter (and that includes partial mashes, extract or all grain revcipes) to have an error in reading the OG...In fact, it is actually nearly impossible to mix the wort and the top off water in a way to get an accurate OG reading...

Brewers get a low reading if they get more of the top off water than the wort, conversely they get a higher number if they grabbed more of the extract than the top off water in their sample.

When I am doing an extract with grain recipe I make sure to stir for a minimum of 5 minutes (whipping up a froth to aerate as well) before I draw a grav sample and pitch my yeast....It really is an effort to integrate the wort with the top off water...This is a fairly common new brewer issue we get on here...unless you under or over topped off or the final volume for the kit was 5 gallons and you topped off to 5.5, then the issue, sorry to say, is "operator error"

More than likely your true OG is really what it's supposed to be. And it will mix itself fine during fermentation.

And just use the number it says in the instructions as the true OG, because it will be.

So the answer is, relax and do nothing.