what reading do you see?

What do you guys see as a hydrometer reading here? This is from my William's watermelon ale kit. The website and catalog state a 1.040 OG, however the instructions don't mention it. The temp was about 70-72 at the time of this reading. Pics are huge so I just put links in.

http://home.pcisys.net/~mojo/IMG_2950.jpg

I'd call that 71 points. Corrected for temperature it becomes 1.072.

That'll have a bit of oomph to it when it's done.

Edit: I'm not a kit kind of person, but that beer really sounds good to me, and I've thought about buying it a time or two, since I can't find watermelon extract anywhere. Let us know how it turns out.

That will probably be 72 or 74 I reckon as pictured. What happens if you gently tip the vial so the hydrometer isn't in there slodi-gonch-wise?

Git 'er parallel before you get your undies in a bunch.

What was the recipe?

Most likely, you didn't stir the wort thoroughly enough after adding your top-off water. It's happened to all of us, we've all gotten wonky readings because of this.

Did you give it a little spin to make sure some bubbles aren't holding it up? Or anything else at the bottom?

If you tell us the recipe, we can give you the OG of your wort, if it was extract.

Looks like about 70, but the picture's angle is not the best for helping you with accuracy. Any reading needs to be taken in plane with the surface of the liquid.

That's what I came up with too about 1.070 ish. I spun that thing a few times I got the same reading with the flask full as well as a bit poured out (when I took the picture). Should I be concerned about such a high OG when I expected it to be around 1.040? Did I do something wrong? No special grains just 6 lbs of wheat LME.

the_bird said:

What was the recipe?

Most likely, you didn't stir the wort thoroughly enough after adding your top-off water. It's happened to all of us, we've all gotten wonky readings because of this.

Click to expand...

That might be it. I gave it some swirls but maybe not enough.

6 pounds of LME will NOT give you 1.070. I think the_bird told you what happened- it's just not thoroughly mixed. Sometimes that happens when using extract and mixing it with top off water. You can NOT get sugars that aren't there, but it sure is easy to get a wrong reading with extract. Sometimes the heavier LME mixture sinks to the bottom, and the lighter top off water floats on top, so the readings are screwy. Rest assured that if you used 6 pounds of LME (in 5 gallons), your OG is 1.040 or so.

YooperBrew said:

Did you give it a little spin to make sure some bubbles aren't holding it up? Or anything else at the bottom?

If you tell us the recipe, we can give you the OG of your wort, if it was extract.

Click to expand...

3 gal boil water, 60 min boil of 6 lbs wheat lme (60/40) I'd tell ya the hops but they are only labeled as "flavoring hops".

Sweet. Thanks for the responses guys. I wasn't real concerned but ya know

I don't hardly ever argue with Yooper and I don't hardly disagree with the_bird, but I still think you flask/ vial is tipped too far for you to believethat reading.

What I am saying is your hydro is probably scraping on the side of the vial and reading high. Straighten it up and see how much further it drops.

No way did you get 1.070 with steepign grains and 6# of *ME.

72 here...............

Did you top up to 5 gallons? If you left the volume at 3 gallons, 6 lbs of LME will give you almost exactly 1.070.

Yuri_Rage said:

Did you top up to 5 gallons? If you left the volume at 3 gallons, 6 lbs of LME will give you almost exactly 1.070.

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I did top up. I'm thinking Bird has it right. I shook the carboy to aerate the wort but probably didn't do a good enough job. I'll also try to do a better job of taking my picture next time. It's the n00bness in me.