Undershot my OG

Today I brewed a Clone for tank 7. Everything went well except I collected less wort than expected out of the mash tun. I was in a hurry so I just added a gallon of water to the boil kettle. I know I need to work on my efficiencies but will leave that for another thread. I ended up with the correct amount of wort for the fermenter but I had a OG of 1.055 not the 1.075 expected.

I'm thinking of adding a pound or so of light DME but I don't know how best to add it. I don't really want to add much to the volume in the fermenter since I'm already where it needs to be. If it is still fermenting heavily and really churning away can i just drop the DME in the fermenter letting the active yeast mix it up, or does it have to be boiled? I have never used extracts before.

I would appreciate any advice.

Marcus

DME and LME need to be boiled and stirred so that it completely disolves. I understand that you don't want to add any volume to the fermenter, but the best suggestion that I can make is to mix a small amount of water with a little bit of DME and mix to disolve, then add a little more DME and mix to disolve. Do that until you have a small amount of very high gravity wort. Doing this will require at least a half gallon of water.

With that said, if I were in your shoes, I'd just leave it. A 1.055 beer is still going to be a pretty decent beer.

It will actually dissolve better in cold water, but still needs to be boiled to be sanitized. I would also recommend against just adding it to the fermenter. Boil in water first.

Possible contamination issues. Better safe than sorry you don't have any beer at all.

Thanks guys, I'm going to leave it as is.

Marcus

BTW htc, I LOVE your signature. If you don't mind me steeling this I'm going to have it framed and put in my bar.