Extremely low SG

I tried to brew my first IPA today. I put 3.3lbs Liquid Amber Malt extract, 3.3lbs Liquid pale malt extract, and 1lb Dry malt extract into 2 gallons of water, boiled for an hour adding 5 oz of hops to it at various times (around 70 IBUs). I cooled it and added it to 70 degree water. The gravity reading was only 30. Anybody have any ideas as to what could have caused such a low gravity reading? I've made about 5 other beers and the gravity was always close to expected (usually 1 - 2 off). I'm not shooting for perfection but 20 - 30 units (what is a gravity unit?) off is awful. I put it in the primary with some yeast, just to see what I end up with. It took a couple of days but it looks like its doing something.

my inexperienced guess is the wort wasn't throughly mixed when you took the reading. On my first batch right after I dumped the wort in the fermenter my reading was like. 1.029 which seemed low. After pitching the yeast and aerating ( mixing vigorously with a spoon) it was right on target at 1.048.

With all those fermentables in the wort I doubt it could have actually been that low.

Correct- with extract, you can't "lose" sugars. They are there. I would guess that the heavier wort (and that's a bigger beer!) sunk so that when you took your hydrometer sample, you got the lighter gravity wort from the top. It's no problem- the yeast will still know what to do!

Either you diluted too much (how big of a batch did you make?) or you took a reading from the separated wort or your hydrometer is off? Does it read 1.000 in water at the proper temperature. Also, how hot was it when you took a reading? These are all factors. You most likely did as suggested above but these are other things to think about.

This may be a stupid question, but did you read the right scale on the hydrometer? Some of them have three scales depending which way you rotate it. You didn't make a 30 Baume wort (1.261), and it's probably not 30 Brix (1.130).

Those fermentables should have you around 1.052: (6.6 x .83 * .040 / 5 = .044) + (.040 / 5 = .08) = 1.052

Is that what you expected?

The water was around 70 degrees (current room temp in my house), it was a total of a bit less then 5 gallons. I double checked my hydrometer in a bucket of water because I too thought it was broken. It measured that fine. It was a three scale hydrometer but I double checked what side I was looking at too. It was the side I normally use (I don't know what a bruan or a brix is so I can't comment on that). I was shooting for 58; I had some adjuncts in there.

LME Amber (21.78) + LME Light (23.10) + DME Pale (8.80) + Light Munich (2.04) + Crystal 10 (2.04) = 58.


So I should be stirring my beer up before I add the yeast? I usually just give it a little bit of a stir. Should I be doing a lot of stirring to really aerate the beer? So even if it’s not mixed up correctly it should still ferment fine? Maybe just take a bit longer?

It won't take any longer at all- the yeast will find the sugars wherever they are. You can stir if you want- better aerated yeast will lead to better yeast reproduction and healthier yeast. Often, topping up with water will provide enough aeration, but stirring it will give it some more.

I don't know if the munich will give you any fermentables, and I doubt that the crystal would. But still you should be in the 1.053- 1.056 range.