If SG is low, keep boiling with hops?
- Thread starter pretzelb
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If it is your 60 minute addition then yes leave them in.
How are you taking your gravity reading? Refractometer or hydrometer?
How are you taking your gravity reading? Refractometer or hydrometer?
Your refractometer needs to be calibrated before use. It will work to the calibration temp. If you calibrate it inside (warm) and then take it outside (cold) and use it, then the body of the refractometer will cool and be wrong when you take your sample.
wendelgee2
Well-Known Member
You should always keep some DME on hand, so you can add it in a pinch if you're below your desired SG. Next time...
pretzelb
Well-Known Member
I did calibrate it months ago when I first got it. Plus it's supposed to adjust for temperature so I thought it didn't matter what temp my wort was.
pretzelb
Well-Known Member
You have a good point. What DME do you recommend? Or does it depend on what you are brewing?
More importantly I need to get a grip on my equipment. I've started a post to figure out how to get better readings.
ChshreCat
Well-Known Member
I'd go with as light as you can get, then it's fairly universal. It won't make your lighter beers darker if you throw some in, but it'll still work if you're brewing a stout or something like that.
IceFisherChris
Well-Known Member
It's pretty rare and usually never required that you have a specific OG. Your beer will still work just fine if you are within a couple points. A perfect clone might require very precise gravities but other recipes won't... If you are very far off then your recipe is either wrong, or too much/little extract was added.
Messing with boiling times will change your hop characteristics. It will get more bitter, and your flavoring additions could start to diminish. It would be best to add DME to raise your OG.
I guess we should ask if you are doing full boils??
Messing with boiling times will change your hop characteristics. It will get more bitter, and your flavoring additions could start to diminish. It would be best to add DME to raise your OG.
I guess we should ask if you are doing full boils??
pretzelb
Well-Known Member
Well, you have a good point about hitting the OG on the spot. But on a few previous batches I screwed up by over doing it on the sparge water so I wanted to be more precise this time. But I have noticed that if I keep my water calculations on target and stick to the rest of the instructions things work out decently even though my gravity calcs are off.
For today's batch I probably screwed up my hop profiles. Oh well.
Full boil? If I understand the question I think the answer is yes. For today I bought a recipe from AHS that was AG and I entered it into BeerSmith for a 5 g base.
If you keep boiling, you'll "lose" the flavor and aroma hops and get more bittering.
Not an issue for a beer like a stout where there often aren't any late hops anyway. But for a pale ale or another beer style that really needs those late hops for balance and flavor, you don't want to boil beyond the time.
It takes some practice to hit your volumes correctly. You can always boil more before you add the hops if you have too much volume, but it's hard to know your boil off rate until you do it a few times. If you're only a little bit high on volume, don't worry about it. You may need some DME to bring up the OG, but maybe not. You may have a good balance, even if you have a bit more volume than planned.
You can run the recipe through Beersmith with the higher volume and see what it does to your IBUs and your SG/IBU ratio to see if there needs to be a fix. My bet is that you'll be fine.
Not an issue for a beer like a stout where there often aren't any late hops anyway. But for a pale ale or another beer style that really needs those late hops for balance and flavor, you don't want to boil beyond the time.
It takes some practice to hit your volumes correctly. You can always boil more before you add the hops if you have too much volume, but it's hard to know your boil off rate until you do it a few times. If you're only a little bit high on volume, don't worry about it. You may need some DME to bring up the OG, but maybe not. You may have a good balance, even if you have a bit more volume than planned.
You can run the recipe through Beersmith with the higher volume and see what it does to your IBUs and your SG/IBU ratio to see if there needs to be a fix. My bet is that you'll be fine.
IceFisherChris
Well-Known Member
Oh okay, I didn't realize it was All-grain.
pretzelb
Well-Known Member
Well I used to be worried about the volume but know I'm more worried about the SG. I have a batch of Irish Red that I think is very watered down because I focused too much on volume and not enough on gravity.
So for this batch I was trying to ignore how many bottles I would fill in the end and instead stick to the targets for the style / recipe. While chasing that gravity reading I knew that I needed to boil down more but I wasn't sure if I should keep the hops in the boil.
I think that in order for me "to be fine" what I should have done was quit at 60 minutes and kept the volumes to predicted amounts.
Sometimes it's as easy as adding a pound of extract to a finished boil, if you're a little over your volume and under your OG, though. The first few batches are definitely learning experiences!
brewagentjay
Well-Known Member
I have been going with the flow. My first OG was spot on and my second yesterday on "Super Brew Sunday" was a little low not much but I noticed it. So I just went with it since I had already kind of changed the instructions a bit as I didn't like them as well as I did on my first batch. So I figure that is why I was a little off.
If the beer turns out good then drink it, if it turns out bad drink it anyway.
If the beer turns out good then drink it, if it turns out bad drink it anyway.
pretzelb
Well-Known Member
I agree but this all started because a batch I made for St Pats turned out weak tasting and (after asking here for help) I realized I needed to change my process. That made me want to check my gravity numbers so I could make a smart change in my process instead of wildly guessing. So when I saw the SG was low I wanted to compensate by extending the boil, but I forgot to determine ahead of time if the hops should stay in.
I need to get a handle on using my refractometer though since I can't tell anything if I can't get a gravity reading.
Hang Glider
Beer Drinker
So - out of curiosity, what SG were you expecting, and what SG did you think you got (refractometer calibration notwithstanding)?
hal2814
Well-Known Member
Do you get a pre-boil gravity? Do you know your boil-off rate? You could calculate an estimated SG by scaling your pre-boil to the amount boiled off. The real world numbers aren't perfectly linear (They'll be a little lower than expected.) but unless you're making a very high gravity beer, it will usually be close enough. Then all you have to do is figure how long it will take to boil off that much.
pretzelb
Well-Known Member
BeerSmith estimated a SG of 1065 and the recipe from AHS estimated 1060. My highest reading was 1052 but if you see my other post on my refractometer you will note that I had major issues there.
I did get a pre-boil of around 1045 and BeerSmith estimated it should be 1056. Since I batch sparge I expected to be a bit low.
I think until I can figure out what is going on with my readings I should just stick with the 60 minute plan for the boil. If it ends up low then so be it. Instead I might try and focus more on the volume collected and boiled off. At least that should be easier to measure although my current measuring tool is just a dip stick I created.
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