Just brewed the first

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mania83

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Haverhill MA
I just brewed my first batch and am keeping my fingers crossed. The lid on my bucket broke but it still makes a good seal. I only have an electric stove so it took a little longer to get to temp. but it worked. I am just wondering if the hydrometer reading is alittle off, (it says it should be 1.040, mine was 1.044) will that make a difference on the end product? Ill keep you guys updated
 
What was the temp of the wort when you took the reading with your hydrometer?

How large was your boil? Sometimes the gravity is a tad off because of that.

.004 is a small difference so I wouldn't worry about that.
 
you can test your hydrometer in tap water at 20*c it should be @1000.
A couple of points wont matter as long as you factor that in.
In the end 2 points higher at OG and FG still works out the same as long as you use the same hydrometer for both.
 
The wort was at 65 degrees, the recipe said it should be at 60-70 degrees at the point I took the reading. Thanks for the help.
 
I'm not terribly confident about my hydrometer's accuracy. I tested it the other day and didn't like what I saw. I tested 60° and 70° tap water and got a reading of 1.002 on both. As stated above, it's not a big deal, but it just makes me curious. Maybe my tap water has a lot of dissolved critters in it :)
 
For the broken lid you can put some plastic wrap over the bucket then place the lid on top of that. Though I don't think it will matter much as long as the seal is decent.
 
Congrats on thce first batch! I wouldn't worry about .004
The first can seem a little hectic but it gets better.
I used electric also, it leaves plenty of time for introspection. :cross:
 
What was your boil volume? How much top off water? A common cause of low OG is incomplete mixing of top off water and wort. The wort tends to separate and head to the bottom. Plus you are not for enough off to worry about. Relax and have a micro brew.
 
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