Tripel Trouble

I brewed a belgian tripel yesterday. Its a 3 gal batch w/ 9lb of belgian pilsner malt, .75lb of carapils and .75lb of corn sugar.

I was assuming mash eff of 65% and was hoping for a pre-boil gravity reading of 1.047 @ 4.75 gal. I overshot that and got 1.056 @ 4.75, So I cut back on the sugar addition to .5lb. According to Beersmith this should have given me an OG of 1.083 at a post boil volume of 3.5gal(including cooling loss).

My boil off rate was a little faster then normal so I added a cup and a half of boiling water w/ about 20 minutes left to make up for it and ended up pretty close to my target volume. I was maybe .10-.25 gallons over.

My O.G. 1.070??? How did this happen? Is it even possible or did I completely misread one or both of my readings? Both gravity readings were taken at 60*

And if anyone can help me calculate how much additional sugar I should add to the fermenter, and when I should add it that would be helpful as well. I'd like to bump it to at least 1.080

There are lots of places for error measurements.. How accurate are your volume estimates and how did you measure the gravities?

I am a bit confused as to what your final yield was, still on my first cup of coffee.

When I calculate 1.056@ 4.75 gallons boiled down to 3.5 gallons the OG comes out to 1.076 and when the yield is 3.75 gallons the OG is 1.070.


How much wort do you have?

That's what I get as well. So assuming I had an extra .25 gals at the end, that would make sense. Except that I added 1/2 lb of corn sugar w/ 15 minutes left in the boil, which according to beersmith, should have bumped it up about .007 to .008 pts

Do you know exactly how much wort you have? It is going to take almost pound of sugar to raise the gravity from 1.070 to 1.080 with 3.75 gallons of wort.

3.75 gallons add 15.1 oz sugar
3.50 gallons add 14.1 oz sugar


Since this is a small batch, it may be better to use some DME along with the sugar to not raise the percentage of sugar content too high and thin it out too much. I do like my tripels with about 15% +/-5% sugar of the total fermentables, but it is completely up to you.

Sorry. Misunderstood. I have about 3.25 to 3.4ish. I had a 1l starter that went in there. One calculator I found said 13 oz

13 oz would be just about right..

Boil, cool and pour it right in the fermentor. Just don't forget to take into account the extra water added

Good luck!