First brew today... 1 mistake and OG is high?

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jwk1972

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Did my first brew today (Brewer's Best Weisenbier) and my OG was supposed to be 1.045 and it was 1.050. I know details are good here so here is my order of things...
1.) Sanitize
2.) Brought 2.5 gallons to boil
3.) added first jar of LME
4.) (1st mistake) added bittering hops and aroma hops (was only supposed to ad bittering hops, darn kids had me distracted)
5.) boiled 45 min
6.) added second jar LME and boiled 5 more min
7.) poured vigorously into ferm bucket with enough water to make 5 gal (ended up with about 1" of "head/foam" and stirred to mix.
8.) took OG reading of 1.050 (range was supposed to be 45-50 so it's on the high end)
9.) pitched rehydrated yest
10.) sealed with lid and added airlock.

2 questions... first is my OG still ok? second how bad is it that I added the aroma hops at the beginning of the boil??? Is it ruined?

Thanks for the help!
 
Your beer will definitely turn out different with your timing on the hops. It will be more bitter with less hop flavor and aroma. As far as the gravity goes, when I was doing extract, I liked to take a gravity reading when it was at 5 gallons. If I was high, I would add a little more water. I always seemed to end up with 5.25 gallons in the fermenter. Hydrometer are also calibrated at different temps. Mine is calibrated at 60 degrees. So if your sample is hotter than 60 the gravity is actually higher than what you are reading
 
Your beer should be fine. As flabyboy said, your hop flavors will be different than the recipe intended, more on the bitter side and less of the hop aroma or flavor contributions, so it will be more bitter than a typical weisen, but most likely it will still be yummy beer when it is done.

The OG reading you had was in range for the recipe, so again, it's fine. Don't sweat it, keep your temps in range and let it do its thing. Chalk the hop additions up to a learning experience and note what you would try to do differently next time.


PS be careful about following the kit recipe's instructions about fermenting times, usually they encourage you to rush your beer off the yeast after 3-5 days. Use your hydrometer and try not to rack your beer until the reading is constant for at least 3 days.
I usually don't bother to check until 3 weeks myself, but as this is a wheat beer, you might want to check after 10 days or 2 weeks. (Just my 2 cents)

Good luck :mug:
 
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