Why lower starting gravity?

I'm confused... I got an extract kit from Austin Homebrew supply - Steamroller Stout. I followed the instructions to the T. This is my 5th or 6th batch of extract brewing, so I am fairly competent with brewing, but not so much with troubleshooting.

My original specific gravity was supposed to be 1.074 but it read about 1.045.

Here in a nutshell are the steps I took... but again, keep in mind, I followed these instructions that came with the kit exactly:

Brought 2 gallons of water to 155 degrees, steeped my grains in one muslin bag(that came in one package from AHS) for 30 minutes... grains were:

3/4 lb. Crystal 40L
2 oz. Chocolate
6 oz. Black roasted barley
1/2 lb 2-row malt
6 oz. black patent
3/4 oz gypsum

drained bag (but didn't squeeze) and then added 1 gallon of water, returned to boil. Turned off heat, added 10 lb. of Dark extract. Stirred, brought back to boil. Hops were:

2 oz Brewers Gold at 60 min
1 oz Fuggle at 5 min

After boil, removed and cooled down to 75 degrees with my wort chiller in about 20 minutes. Aerated and then topped off in 6.5 carboy with another almost 3 gallons of water to make 5 1/4 gal per recipe. Took sample immediately with thief and got the 1.045 or so... what could have gone wrong? Beer is supposed to end up at around 8 percent... I'm afraid I'm going to have a 4% beer or so in the end that's too watered down... temp of wort was probably 70-75... temp in garage we brewed was probably around 55 degrees.

any ideas?

Thanks for the help!

How well did you stir the wort before you took your gravity sample. It is common for the top off water to not mix well with the wort giving you a low reading or a high reading. As long as you added all the extract, you have the correct OG even if your hydrometer says not.

RM-MN said:

How well did you stir the wort before you took your gravity sample. It is common for the top off water to not mix well with the wort giving you a low reading or a high reading. As long as you added all the extract, you have the correct OG even if your hydrometer says not.

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Oh, that makes feel tons better... I didn't do any stirring/agitating at all before the reading... just the aeration before topping off.

Lovely! Thanks for the reply, RM-MN!

this is one of the most common ist timer posts on here, and the answer is the same.

One thing to realize is the it is hard to miss your OG in an extract batch, and in reality you more than likely DIDN'T.....It's just that it is USUALLY difficult for the original gravity to actually REFLECT this fact.

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"

If your target volume was correct, then it will be fine.

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

This is one of the most common newb first time posting topics on here. It happens to everybody.

Your beer is fine, and you don't need to mess with it, or try to fix it

Also, my apologies for not doing a better search... I found a similar question/answer attached via the similar threads below my thread... just didn't word the search right.

So thanks again for clearing it up...

Revvy said:

this is one of the most common ist timer posts on here, and the answer is the same.

One thing to realize is the it is hard to miss your OG in an extract batch, and in reality you more than likely DIDN'T.....It's just that it is USUALLY difficult for the original gravity to actually REFLECT this fact.

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"

If your target volume was correct, then it will be fine.

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

This is one of the most common newb first time posting topics on here. It happens to everybody.

Your beer is fine, and you don't need to mess with it, or try to fix it

Click to expand...

Awesome. Thank you for the thorough reply, Revvy. And again, my apologies for the bad search attempt.