Questions Regarding Low SG

It may be a bit late however;

For my second time brewing I hope I didn't follow the wrong advise from my LHBS guy, however I ended up with a low OG, and was looking for something a bit higher.

My recipe:
1 can of Muntons Blonde
500g Pale Dry DME
500g Dextrose
500g Honey

This was following his directions, where did I go wrong? I only ended up with an OG of around 1.032. I've read, no one ever dumps; and I agree with this philosophy, however it would be nice to know:

* Where did I go wrong?
* Is it still possible to fix it after two days in the primary?
* Should I really care ?

Thanks for all the help.

my first question is how long did it ferment for?

Did you happen to top off with water after boiling? If so and you took your reading after topping off then you just didnt mix it well enough.

pwndabear said:

my first question is how long did it ferment for?

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Thank you for your quick response.

It has been sitting in the primary for two days (this being the second day).

dcp27 said:

Did you happen to top off with water after boiling? If so and you took your reading after topping off then you just didnt mix it well enough.

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Thank you as well for your reply.

When I transferred it to the primary (I use a Carboy); my LHBS guy said the carboy would crack really easily from the heat so instead, I filled the carboy half way with cold water, then the wort, then more cold water. I then attempted to mix it as well as I could for about 2 minutes with a spare racking cane.

I'm sure I'm just over-reacting (like the first time your child drive's a car alone, that kind of over-reacting ).

I'm guessing it just wasn't mixed well enough with your top off water. My extract batches never give good OG reading no matter how much I stir. Some guys on here have better luck that I do however.

Wort and water can be very difficult to mix together properly. I'd opt for taking a reading before adding water and calculating for the added water.
batch OG = post-boil OG * post-boil volume / batch volume

Also, did you adjust your reading for temperature?

Anyway, everything added has a pre-determined amount of sugar, so if you have 5gallons, you should be around 1.049, so I'd just go with that as your OG

EDIT: nevermind, there were some posts while I was typing this one

Thanks to everyone, these few replies have given me some great confidence in my latest brew. It's been bubbling quite nicely, into it's second day - very exciting stuff. I think I should just sit back, relax, and contemplate my next home brew adventure

With that being said however, and it would appear that my issue was just improper mixing: Is there an easy, or 'best' method for mixing wort and water when using a carboy as a primary?

Thanks again.

good luck!

We get this question every day.

It's a pretty common issue for ANYONE topping off with water in the fermenter (and that includes partial mashes, extract or all grain revcipes) to have an error in reading the OG...In fact, it is actually nearly impossible to mix the wort and the top off water in a way to get an accurate OG reading...

Brewers get a low reading if they get more of the top off water than the wort, conversely they get a higher number if they grabbed more of the extract than the top off water in their sample.

When I am doing an extract with grain recipe I make sure to stir for a minimum of 5 minutes (whipping up a froth to aerate as well) before I draw a grav sample and pitch my yeast....It really is an effort to integrate the wort with the top off water...This is a fairly common new brewer issue we get on here...unless you under or over topped off or the final volume for the kit was 5 gallons and you topped off to 5.5, then the issue, sorry to say, is "operator error"

More than likely your true OG is really what it's supposed to be. And it will mix itself fine during fermentation.

Thanks for the response Revvy, and everyone else of course.

I'll certainly make more of an effort to get things incorporated in the next batch. I should have an empty fermenter in about 2 weeks - now, to decide on that next batch

This is rather addictive.

J