gravity too low?

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ninety3oc

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So i brewed my first batch jan 10th.. its an ipa recipe (all grain partial mash) and the og came out almost on target at 1.076.. fermentation was fast and by the 14th there were no bubbles...(using wlp 001)
I decided on the 14th to add 2lbs of corn sugar just to jack the abv a bit .. because according to online brewing calcs my fg was going to come to about 1.020 and would be 1.022 with the corn sugar. i boiled up about 2 quarts of water and added the corn sugar, let it cool and added.
Today I decided to take a grav reading and surprisingly my grav reads 1.007-1.008 is this too low? and if so what did i do wrong?
 
IPA's are usually on the drier side, so you should be fine as long as you hopped appropriately for such a high ABV. I am unfamiliar with wlp 001 but as you got good attenuation, no worries. Heck, if it tastes good... then all is well.
 
also i too the sample from about an inch from the top of the wort level did not stir or anything

yes i hopped the hell out of it :)
 
Adding the corn sugar should of actually added to your FG. I would double and triple check your readings. At 1.008 you are looking at 11.3% ABV, and a pretty dry beer. IPA that are that dry are going to be overpowering hoppy. Sounds like something I would like. Just keep in mind that you need a malt backbone to keep some balance in the beer.
 
You are just fine. Having a beer that dry will accentuate the hops bitterness and flavor of your IPA so it will seem to have more "kick" than expected. It may be a little unbalanced but most hop heads like it that way. Given your OG and mostly malt based beer, I suspect there may be a measurement error in your FG. Unless you use a considerable amount of sugar to achieve the 1.076 OG the FG should be higher.

As for adding sugar. Adding corn sugar will boost your OG (or effective OG in your case because you added during fermentation) but should not effect your FG. The corn sugar ferments completely leaving no residual sugars. However it should not affect the fermentation of the malt sugars. To make a beer of a given OG finish drier you would replace some of the malt with corn sugar to keep the OG the same but have fewer unfermentable sugars, resulting in a lower FG.

Craig
 
CBBaron said:
You are just fine. Having a beer that dry will accentuate the hops bitterness and flavor of your IPA so it will seem to have more "kick" than expected. It may be a little unbalanced but most hop heads like it that way. Given your OG and mostly malt based beer, I suspect there may be a measurement error in your FG. Unless you use a considerable amount of sugar to achieve the 1.076 OG the FG should be higher.

As for adding sugar. Adding corn sugar will boost your OG (or effective OG in your case because you added during fermentation) but should not effect your FG. The corn sugar ferments completely leaving no residual sugars. However it should not affect the fermentation of the malt sugars. To make a beer of a given OG finish drier you would replace some of the malt with corn sugar to keep the OG the same but have fewer unfermentable sugars, resulting in a lower FG.

Craig
Click to expand...


well i was trying to brew a very hoppy beer in the first place at 116 ibus so the more the better i guess.. im not sure why it came out so low.

so what would be my abv then with a og of 1.076 plus the 2 lbs of corn sugar.. and my fg being 1.007-1.008 im coming up with a technical starting gravity of 1.093 and a abv or 12.2% with this calculator http://powersbrewery.home.comcast.net/~powersbrewery/mastercalculator.html
 
i think i figured out why i had this problem.. is it possible that high fermentation temps caused my grav to be so low? when i first pitched the yeast i accidentally left it next to the heater and was 80+ when i woke in the am...i quickly cooled it down to low 70's outside i know it was at about 70 constant but may have been as high as 74-76 at times..
 

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