I think I may have messed up my second brew.

Is it possible to have too much water evaporate while making mash?
It took forever for it to reach a boil. Over 2 hours.
I started with 2.5 gallons, and by the time it was in the primary, there was 1 gallon of wort.
When I topped off with water, I didn't fill all the way to 5 gallons. My OG was 1.011.
I'm really hoping that the topoff water just wasn't mixed well with the wort.
If this is the case, what is the best way to fix that? I did stir the yeast in well, and the color did appear to get darker.
The beer is a brewers best English brown ale btw.

If it is just an extract batch, then there wasn't a mash. Is there something wrong with the stove that it took so long to boil?

Don't worry about mixing it well, the yeast will find the sugars.

Sounds like you have a problem with your stove. If you can't boil 2.5 gallons in 2 hours, I would invest in a propane burner if you want to continue brewing in the future. If you mixed your wort well after topping off and your gravity was that low, the only way you could have fixed it would be adding DME or sugar to bring up your gravity. Next time you do extract, I would periodically check your gravity as you slowly add your water. I feel it's better to sacrifice your amount of beer to get a n accurate gravity.

Sounds like you need to upgrade your flame. Boiling off (or evaporating in this case) that much wort might lead to carmelization. However, if the loss is not due to actual boiling, then it might not be a concern. Plus it's a Brown Ale, so it might be fine anyway.

I highly recommend finding a turkey fryer setup or a propane burner if you can set it up outside. They heat quickly and will be a necessary part of going AG when that happens for you, so it's something that you can use forever.

In the meantime, maybe try positioning your kettle over 2 burners. I've had to do that in the past.

cravej said:

If it is just an extract batch, then there wasn't a mash. Is there something wrong with the stove that it took so long to boil?

Don't worry about mixing it well, the yeast will find the sugars.

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The kit had the grains to make the tea. This is what took so long to boil.
And there is nothing wrong with the stove. My first batch didn't take that long, but now that I think about it, I was using a different burner.

trevorc13 said:

Sounds like you have a problem with your stove. If you can't boil 2.5 gallons in 2 hours, I would invest in a propane burner if you want to continue brewing in the future. If you mixed your wort well after topping off and your gravity was that low, the only way you could have fixed it would be adding DME or sugar to bring up your gravity. Next time you do extract, I would periodically check your gravity as you slowly add your water. I feel it's better to sacrifice your amount of beer to get a n accurate gravity.

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When you say periodically check gravity while slowly adding water, do you mean during the boil or topping off in my primary? How slow is slow?

charliebucket said:

The kit had the grains to make the tea. This is what took so long to boil.
And there is nothing wrong with the stove. My first batch didn't take that long, but now that I think about it, I was using a different burner.

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You didn't boil your steeping grains did you? Aside from that RDWHAHB, you didn't mix your top off water enough so your gravity reading was off. If you end up with 5 gallons of wort then your OG specified in the kit should be what you use.

wyzazz said:

You didn't boil your steeping grains did you? Aside from that RDWHAHB, you didn't mix your top off water enough so your gravity reading was off. If you end up with 5 gallons of wort then your OG specified in the kit should be what you use.

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I never let the temp of the water with the grains in it go over 155 degrees.
I steeped, and then brought it up to a boil before adding my DME and LME.
I ended up positioning my brewpot over 2 flames and that did the trick.

I was just afraid that I had to add too much water to the wort after cooling, but now I'm pretty sure I just didn't mix it well enough.

Then you should be just fine. If you're doing partial boils you can usually heat your water to ~165F then drop that steeping bag in and let it sit for 20-30mins with a towel wrapped around it (burner off of course) and it will hold the appropriate amount of heat for that time. One other thing that may help with your hop utilization is a late extract addition. Add your DME as you normally would, but add all of your LME at the end of the boil (usually at flameout).

Ok, so it's been 3 days with no airlock activity.

I know that airlock activity isn't necessarily a good indication of fermentation, but I believe my OG reading was wrong due to poor mixing of wort and topoff water.

So what would my next step be?
Should I stir up my wort with a sanitized paddle and take a new hydrometer reading?
Should I leave as is and take a hydrometer reading?

I'm worried that because I didn't have an accurate OG, I won't be able to tell if fermentation is happening because I don't have a true number to compare it to.
Another thing I'm worried about goes back to my first post. I added too much water and my really low OG was true.

Halp please!

Don't stir the wort after the initial pitch; if you are actually fermenting you don't want to oxidize the beer.
Regarding OG: I've had the problem of not mixing the wort and top-off water adequately before pitching the yeast; I had lower than expected hydro readings.
I would recommend taking a hydro reading. Simply and safely, extract a small portion of the wort via sterilized utensil (wine thief, measuring cup, turkey baster, etc.) and fill the tube that your hydrometer was packaged in. Since you don't have any accurate OG readings to compare your findings you might be able to just see if there was any reduction in gravity.

FensterBos said:

Don't stir the wort after the initial pitch; if you are actually fermenting you don't want to oxidize the beer.
Regarding OG: I've had the problem of not mixing the wort and top-off water adequately before pitching the yeast; I had lower than expected hydro readings.
I would recommend taking a hydro reading. Simply and safely, extract a small portion of the wort via sterilized utensil (wine thief, measuring cup, turkey baster, etc.) and fill the tube that your hydrometer was packaged in. Since you don't have any accurate OG readings to compare your findings you might be able to just see if there was any reduction in gravity.

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Well I'm pretty sure it's going to be different because I mixed the yeast into the wort after taking my OG. So I have a feeling that the OG changed after that stirring.
And the (wrong) OG was 1.011, so Im not expecting it to get any lower than that

did the recipe have the OG?

if not i bet you can post the recipe here and someone can calculate what your OG should be

charliebucket said:

When you say periodically check gravity while slowly adding water, do you mean during the boil or topping off in my primary? How slow is slow?

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After the wort has been boiled and cooled I add the wort to a bottling bucket, and top to five gallons with water. While it's filling up I have my hydrometer in there and I monitor this while the water goes in. This way I'm sure to hit my gravity without paying attention to my volume.

What temp did you pitch your yeast at?

Open it up and look for a indication of fermentation. Take a sniff, does it burn your nose? That means there is CO2 being produced. Is there a kraeusen, that means there is fermentation.

Take a gravity reading today, then take another tomorrow. If it's lower tomorrow than today's reading then you have fermentation going on inside that bucket. RDWHAHB.

trevorc13 said:

After the wort has been boiled and cooled I add the wort to a bottling bucket, and top to five gallons with water. While it's filling up I have my hydrometer in there and I monitor this while the water goes in. This way I'm sure to hit my gravity without paying attention to my volume.

Click to expand...

This is great advice and I'll be sure to follow next time. Thanks!

wyzazz said:

What temp did you pitch your yeast at?

Open it up and look for a indication of fermentation. Take a sniff, does it burn your nose? That means there is CO2 being produced. Is there a kraeusen, that means there is fermentation.

Take a gravity reading today, then take another tomorrow. If it's lower tomorrow than today's reading then you have fermentation going on inside that bucket. RDWHAHB.

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Pitched @ 66 degrees
It smells sweet like LME and there is no kreusen.
I just moved it to a warmer room.
I also took a hydrometer reading and got 1.041. The kit stated OG is 1.045-1.049.
If the reading is the same tomorrow, would it be advisable for me to re-pitch some yeast?
Thanks again for all the help everyone.

Like others have said, you can determine the OG of an extract + steeping grains batch very accurately with a brew calculator. You just need to know what the ingredients were, and a good measurement of the volume that is in the fermenter. This assumes you didn't lose a whole lot of sugars in kettle trub, that didn't go into the fermenter. Here are a couple online calculators:

http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/recipe.html
http://beercalculus.hopville.com/recipe

Make sure if you use that nifty trick with the hydrometer in the bottling bucket that you mix the wort really well when you're taking the measurement. Another caveat would be the wort temperature. It will be inaccurate due to the temperature of the wort being generally high at that stage in the game. The SG can be corrected for temperature, BUT the temp correction charts can be very inaccurate over about 90F. Best to chill any sample down to the calibration temp of the hydrometer, usually 60F. As long as you know your volume and ingredients the calculators work well for extract + steeping grain batches.