Missed my original gravity by quite a bit...

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

NewBrewB

Supporting Member
HBT Supporter
Joined
Dec 26, 2009
Messages
807
Reaction score
48
Location
Pace
I read in another thread that this could be caused by not getting all of the sugars out in the steeping stage.

This batch I did had 4 bags of grain, which I split into my two grain bags during steeping. They were pretty full.

How important is it not to "over-stuff" your grain bags?

Do you have to steep everything at once or could I have just steeped them one at a time (assuming I could maintain my target temp of 160)?
 
What was it supposed to be at and what was it at? Curious cause I want to make sure I'm not doing anything wrong. :p
 
If you were soaking the grains at a steady 160* water -- your fg could be high also, giving a residual sweetness.
 
Were you mashing or brewing extract with steeping grains? If steeping, the grains aren't adding that much gravity. How much did you miss by?
 
1.112 estimated
1.062 original gravity (measured no bubbles and at about 70 deg)

Vanilla Bean Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout
(kit from ******)

10 lbs Light Dry Malt extract
20 oz honey
1 lb flaked oats
1 lb chocolate malt
1 lb roasted barley
8 oz black (patent) malt
2 oz Columbus pelet hops
2 oz cascade @30 min
2 oz cascade @5 min

Other stuff added at the secondary ferment
 
10 lbs dme and 20 oz honey looks like an expected og of 1.091. If you added those amounts of dme and honey you hit very close to the expected gravity. Perhaps hyrometer calibration problem or taking gravity reading at other than 60* or topping up with water. They are the common reasons for not reading the proper gravity.
 
Did you add top up water to get to 5 gal? Only way you could be that far off is if you didn't add something or if you added water after a partial boil. If you added water it is pretty much impossible to mix it to the point where you get an accurately reading.
 
I second if you topped off that will throw your reading off. Also, you need to adjust for temp. Hydrometers are supposed to be calibrated at 60*. Check your hydrometer in 60* water - it should be zero. If not you will know how to adjust your readings accordingly. Then if you take your gravity reading at any other temp than 60 you will have to make another adjustment. Typically the adjustment increases gravity with increased temp.

It is unusual to miss gravity by that much when using extract.
 
a little curuious myself. I brewed an extract of caribou slobber from NW. Target was 1.050. My OG with temp adjustment is 1.062. I did a partial boil of 2.5 gals and topped off with 2.5 gals of previously boiled then cooled water. Do you think i was that far off of OG because of the top off? I thought i mixed pretty well. I shook the hell out of it for about 3 mins. thanks. Either way, the next morning i am bubbling like craz, so this is ok right? Anything i should be worried about other than maybe a higher ABV?
 
a little curuious myself. I brewed an extract of caribou slobber from NW. Target was 1.050. My OG with temp adjustment is 1.062. I did a partial boil of 2.5 gals and topped off with 2.5 gals of previously boiled then cooled water. Do you think i was that far off of OG because of the top off? I thought i mixed pretty well. I shook the hell out of it for about 3 mins. thanks. Either way, the next morning i am bubbling like craz, so this is ok right? Anything i should be worried about other than maybe a higher ABV?

With an extract kit it is almost impossible to miss the intended og by more than a smidge as long as after top off you have the correct volume. It is much harder to mix it completely than you might think. That having been said, fermentation is pretty vigorous and will complete your mixing job for you. In the end, as long as your volumes are correct and your hydrometer is calibrated correctly your fg should be close to the kit estimate.
 
It's simply a matter of math and measurement. The following is straight from John Palmer, "How to Brew". The following measurements are at 60*.

"A pound of LME typically yields a gravity of 1.034 - 38, as measured by a hydrometer, when dissolved in one gallon of water. DME yields about 1.040 - 43. These yield values are referred to as Points per Pound per Gallon. If someone tells you that a certain extract or malt's yield is 36 points, it means that when 1 pound is dissolved into 1 gallon of water, the gravity is 1.036. If that 1 pound is dissolved into 3 gallons, its gravity would be 36/3 = 12 or 1.012."
 
Thanks for the explanation.

Since I started brewing (20 batches), I have never actually been able to calculate ABV because I always forgot to take a sample, broke my hydrometer, or was too cheap to buy another one, etc.

I thought the estimated OG on the kit instructions would allow for topping it off at 5gal but it makes sense they would never be able to estimate exactly how much boil off I would have in my unique brewing environment.

Thanks for the informative feedback, everyone!
 
The og is including topping off. Most kit instructions are designed for those doing partial boils and topping off. Even if you do a full boil and have to top off due to boil off, the og should be relatively the same.

If you start with 5 gallons and boil down to 4 the gravity will increase as you boil off. If you didn't top off to 5 gallons prior to pitching your gravity would be higher than intended.
 
Hmm...

Well, I did a 4-gal boil (3 wasn't high enough to cover my temp probe) and added about a half-gal at the end to bring it up to 5.
 
I would think you didn't measure enough water to top to 5 gal. How are you sure you ended up with 5? How did you measure it?
 
I know where the line of 5 gal is in my carboy (measured and marked it long ago with a marker) After the wort is cool, I just fill up to the line, then mix and pitch yeast.
 
Only a couple things i can think of:
1) You didn't add what the recipe calls for. Maybe the kit was missing it or maybe you forgot something. Did you weigh all the DME and honey before adding it?

2) Did you potentially add all the DME before steeping? if so, when you pulled the grains out, unless you rinsed them with water to reach your 4 gallon boil volume, then you likely took LOTS of your fermentables with them-- grain holds onto lots of water.

3) You undershot your gravity- unless you SEVERELY over-diluted when you added top up water (I mean like... you would have had to make an error on the level of a couple gallons to cause that huge OG error) this is NOT your cause

4) Hydrometer calibration is off or you didn't take your reading at the calibration temperature of 60* F
 
paparker21 said:
2) Did you potentially add all the DME before steeping? if so, when you pulled the grains out, unless you rinsed them with water to reach your 4 gallon boil volume, then you likely took LOTS of your fermentables with them-- grain holds onto lots of water.

Im intrigued by this comment.

I added my grains dry into my grain bags and submerged them in 4 gal of water at 160 degrees then kept it as close to 160 as I could for 15 mins. After that, I pulled the bags and put them in a bowl. I later dumped all of the water from the bowl into the BK that drained out of the bags. (I also gave them a bit of a squeeze over the BK and lightly scalded my hands in the process...)

Should I have only used say 2 gal, then after steeping, used another 2 gal of water to wash through the bags into the kettle? It never occurred to me that I could run clean water throu gh the grains to get more of the sugars out. As for the honey, I bought a jar that had twice as much as the recipe called for and poured in half of it....the other ingredients were premeasured and packaged in the kit.
 
What i try to do when i steep is use about 2/3 of my boil volume water to steep. then, seperately, i'll heat the remaining third or so (+ whatever amount i expect to loose to the grain, so typically i'm 2 gallons steep, 1.5-2 gallons seperate). After your steeping time is complete, lift the bags up and set them in a collander right over your BK and SLOWLY pour the rinse water over the bags. Basically, you want to filter all that fresh water through the grain to get as much goodness from them as possible. I'll either rinse till i hit my boil volume (3 gallons prior to DME addition--- btw, i JUST realized i think i've been making calculation errors based on this... i figure on a 3 gallon boil but i top to 3 gallons then add DME that ends up making it sit closer to 4 gallons volume DOH!) or until i'm out of rinse water.

I don't think that, based on your comments, this is what made you miss OG though. If you added all your DME THEN steeped and took the grain bags without a rinse, that might have potentially done it....steeping grains alone though definitely don't make up 50% of your fermentables.
 
Just a follow up.

After a couple of weeks and moving the batch to secondary, I took another sample. This reading was 1.142 so according to the chart that came with my hydrometer, the ABV is 10.8%, which is even higher than the kit estimates. Thanks for all of the feedback and suggestions.

Actually, I brewed today and incorporated the idea of rinsing the grains into the kettle after steeping.
 
Back
Top