What factors affect the BG & SG????

Brewed an octane IPA kit from Midwest last night. I steeped the specialty grains at approx 155F for 30 min. Then brought to a boil.

To decrease maillard reactions, promote clarity and promote hop utilization/yeild, I added about 3.3lbs of Light Malt LME at the beginning of the boil, saving the remaining 3.3lbs of light malt LME + 3.3lbs of dark malt LME for the last 15 min of the boil.

After cooling the wort and transferring to the primary, I measured my SG and it was substantially lower than the recipe notes from Midwest indicated should occur.

Any insight on what factors affect gravity at varying points in the brewing process would be appreciated.

-thanks

What was your original gravity and what was specified by the recipe? The information you have stated here doesn't give any indications of a mistake in the process unless your total fermenter volume was higher than the recipe called for...

PS - after transferring to the primary, did you mix it up really well before taking a gravity reading?

I know brewed the batch consistent with the recipe and general brewing technique...which is why I am wondering what underlying factors generally affect the gravity at various points in the process.

With extract there's very little to change the gravity. We need to see the recipe to find out where the problems are.

That being said, the biggest error in extract gravity questions are not getting an accurate initial reading due to adding water after the boil, but not mixing well enough so that the water is not just sitting on top of the fermentables.

Brewsmith,

Thanks, that was my first suspicion.

If this was a partial boil you probably the top off water probably didn't get mixed well enough. Sometimes this happens with extract. If you added all the fermentables you OG will be very close to the one specified in the recipe. The yeast will find those sugars and do their job.