OG off from extract brew

I just brewed a brown ale and my OG is off from what beer calculus said it should be. I first steeped 1lb crystal malt 60L, 1/2 lb crystal malt 40L, and 1/2lb chocolate malt in 160F 1.5 gallons water for 30 minutes. I then added 4lbs pale liquid malt extract, 1 cup brown sugar and 1.5 gallons water. Boiled it for 50 minutes with hop additions then added another 4lb pale liquid malt extract for the last 10 minutes. I cooled it to 60F and then added water to bring it up to 5 gallons in the fermentor. Beer calculus said it should be 1.072 but I got 1.042. Any suggestions as to why? Did I do something wrong? Thanks for any help.

It'll be fine, OG doesnt really matter I have messed up the OG so bad before and still made great beer. Cheers, have another homebrew!

I'm adding up to only 1.062 with BeerSmith (guessing the cup of sugar was 1/4 lbs). But it's nearly impossible to miss your OG with extract as long as the volume is correct. Specialty grains don't contribute much and that sugar isn't much either. Did you rinse the container of extract to get it all. Otherwise, I'll bet it wasn't fully stirred up after topping off or your hyro reading was incorrect. It happens all the time. RDWHAHB

It wouldn't be possible to get an OG of 1.072 for 5 gallons with those ingredients. You'll get just a little fermentable sugars from the crystal malt, and 4 pounds of LME will give you 1.029 only. I came up with a total possible of 1.044, if the sugar was a pound.

Beer calculus is way off on that, for some reason.

He had 8 lbs total LME. There's a second 4 lbs at the last 10 mins.

I'd plug it in, but BeerSmith is on my other computer...

Yooper said:

It wouldn't be possible to get an OG of 1.072 for 5 gallons with those ingredients. You'll get just a little fermentable sugars from the crystal malt, and 4 pounds of LME will give you 1.029 only. I came up with a total possible of 1.044, if the sugar was a pound.

Beer calculus is way off on that, for some reason.

Click to expand...

Even if you plug it into beer calculus, you end up with numbers not too far off from yours (1.048 if the sugar was 1lb). So either the OP isn't giving us the full recipe, or messed up the input into beer calculus.

Edit: oops. misread it, I get 1.077 if the sugar was 1lb.

Leaving out what the recipe in your software should read, the reason for your actual gravity reading being off is simple,

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.


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TromboneGuy said:

He had 8 lbs total LME. There's a second 4 lbs at the last 10 mins.

I'd plug it in, but BeerSmith is on my other computer...

Click to expand...

Ah!!! I didn't see the other 4 pounds! Of course, that makes a huge difference, and the OG would be 1.073. Sorry for my lack of reading skills, and for the clarification!

So more than likely your wort IS the 1.073 that you calculated in BC, but like I said earlier, you just did what nearly every extract brewer has done at one time or another, gotten a skewed reading due to insufficient mixing of the wort and top up water, BUT the activity of the yeast during fermentation, will mix the water and wort together just fine.

Your TRUE gravity is what the software says it should be. Since you are not converting starch to sugar yourself, the gravity of your extract kit is what the extract was at the maltser, dilluted by the volume of water you used. It's already been calculated, and if you hit the correct volume, it is foolproof.

Thanks for all the help. Hopefully it's just that I didn't mix it well enough after I topped it off. I just shook the fermentor around. Thanks for the tips and I'll be sure to mix it well enough next time!