Gravity higher then starting

after making ale based beer with ease i tried my hand at making a light pilsner beer. (i couldnt get my beer any lower then between 55-60 degrees) After about 10 weeks in the carboy i did my first gravity and the reading is .020 more then i started with .... any idea why this would happen and is there any way to correct .. thanks!

Completely unpossible. One of your measurements was wrong, probably the first one. If you didn't mix completely after topping off (if you did that) your OG measurement was probably wrong.

You either measured your sg wrong or your fg wrong. You can't increase you sugar content. If this was an extract batch you probably measured the top off water before it was mixed in. You may have under pitched your yeast too causing a stuck fermentation. I guess more info is needed such as recipe and pitching rate.

Gotcha, maybe too many homebrews while making homebrews. i obv measured my grav wrong and now im kinda lost. my current grav is around 1.060 ..

used white labs pilsner lager 800
I was doing the "this buds for you" i attached the instructions below:



http://www.midwestsupplies.com/aitdownloadablefiles/download/aitfile/aitfile_id/1117/

hate being a rookie

jafu12 said:

Gotcha, maybe too many homebrews while making homebrews. i obv measured my grav wrong and now im kinda lost. my current grav is around 1.060 ..

used white labs pilsner lager 800
I was doing the "this buds for you" i attached the instructions below:



http://www.midwestsupplies.com/aitdownloadablefiles/download/aitfile/aitfile_id/1117/

hate being a rookie

Click to expand...

In an extract kit, assuming that you used the proper amount of water, there's basically no way that you could have gotten a correct gravity reading 50% above your recipe's OG. I strongly suspect that your beer is not actually at 1.060.

Maybe you used anti-yeast instead of yeast? Anti-yeast come from an alternate dimension and eat CO2 while giving off sugar. Anti-yeast are great for turning beer into wort.

What is your hydrometer reading in regular water?

I will check when I get home from work. Could be a hydrometer issue. Good idea ... Maybe this anti yeast has an anti debt cousin I can get going on credit card bill.

is your hydrometer upside down

Lol ... You just throw it in the bucket and shake right ?? No the hydrometer was rightside up.

lol. glad you have a sense of humor.
i cant help you. i never heard of that or cant even imagine it possible.
im guna keep a watch on this thread outa curiosity to see wat ideas other people have on ur problem

trevorc13 said:

You either measured your sg wrong or your fg wrong. You can't increase you sugar content. If this was an extract batch you probably measured the top off water before it was mixed in. You may have under pitched your yeast too causing a stuck fermentation. I guess more info is needed such as recipe and pitching rate.

Click to expand...

You can't increase the amount of sugar, but you could increase sugar concentration, and therefore gravity, if you had a significant enough evaporation going on. As long as the carboy was well sealed, this shouldn' be an issue, tho.

Now that i've been an ass and pointed out how you possibly COULD have a higher gravity, I'll officially state that I'm in agreement with other responses that one of the gravity readings was off. Usually its easier to have incorrect initial gravity readings because of incomplete mixing, but for your sake, I hope its the final that was off, cuz otherwise your yeast haven't accomplished anything in the past 10 weeks.

Did you happen to add the priming sugar to your wort? Did you do any temperature adjustments for the hydro reading?

i am going to snag a new hydrometer tonight and test it out .. i didn't add any priming sugar and i used

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator/hydrometer.html?13661541

to compensate for the temp

Good call on the new hydrometer. Also make sure to give it a little spin to get any bubbles off the bottom of the hydrometer. That can push it up a bit. But a bad hydrometer sounds like it might be the culprit.

discnjh said:

You can't increase the amount of sugar, but you could increase sugar concentration, and therefore gravity, if you had a significant enough evaporation going on. As long as the carboy was well sealed, this shouldn' be an issue, tho.

Now that i've been an ass and pointed out how you possibly COULD have a higher gravity, I'll officially state that I'm in agreement with other responses that one of the gravity readings was off. Usually its easier to have incorrect initial gravity readings because of incomplete mixing, but for your sake, I hope its the final that was off, cuz otherwise your yeast haven't accomplished anything in the past 10 weeks.

Click to expand...

I hope not. Ive been pumped to drink this beer!

topherm said:

maybe you used anti-yeast instead of yeast? Anti-yeast come from an alternate dimension and eat co2 while giving off sugar. Anti-yeast are great for turning beer into wort.

Click to expand...

Not helpful but funny as hell!

How is it your "beer" has been going for 10 weeks and this is your first gravity reading? Did you see any sign of fermentation at any point? Did you make a proper yeast starter?

This seems like such an obvious thing to test I'm surprised nobody's mentioned this -- and I suppose it is moot now if the OP is already on his/her way out to buy another hydrometer -- but did you try putting the hydrometer in tap water and making sure it is within a point or two of 1.000? I do this about every other time I use the hydrometer, just to make sure the paper inside hasn't slipped or something stupid like that. It's probably paranoid of me to check so often, but since it takes like 2 seconds, I figure why not...

Now as far as that "anti-yeast" thing... don't even mention that! An organism that turned beer into wort is about the scariest thing I've ever heard of!

Yeast starter was made, was visible signs of fermenting early on. Yes this was the first reading.

Good news! the hydrometer was busted up. After the advice of everyone I checked the water reading and found it was off by great margin. I will be checking my new hydrometer before every reading. Thanks