High OG on Oatmeal Stout

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Lindyrig

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Location
Sioux Falls, SD
Hello everyone!

My brother-in-law has been interested in homebrewing
for quite some time. Before Thanksgiving dinner yesterday,
I decided it was a great time to get him started. I bought a
an Oatmeal Stout AG kit and set out all of my beermaking
tools. Because the oven/stove was in use for obvious reasons,
I hooked up the turkey fryer outside in the garage. The whole
process couldn't have gone smoother. I used 1.5 qts/lb (for a
9 lb grain bill) and mashed out 2.5 gallons. I put about 3.5 gallons
of sparge water back in my mash tun and finished up with roughly
6.0 gallons of wort. Everything seems to be going perfect at
this point. I boiled it for 60 minutes and ended up with about 4.90
gallons. I cooled it and took a gravity reading and came up with
1.058.. (target was 1.044). Needless to say, I am a bit worried
and concerned about what might have caused my OG to be off
by such a large number. Is it because I boiled off too much with
the turkey fryer? Could it have been the hydometer was in cold
sanitary water and was dropped into a 73 degree bucket of wort?

I've been brewing for a few years and never had such a difference
in my OG reading. Is the beer going to taste alright or should I
covertly brew another batch and give him that one instead?

Thanks for any advice/suggestions you may have..

Aaron
 
If you measured it at 73 degrees, then the OG was probably really 1.059. You probably just boiled too much water off, or your efficiency was better than expected. I'm sure it'll turn out fine, but you can dilute with sterilized water if you want to bring the gravity down.
 
I just did an oatmeal stout yesterday too (also for my BIL, who loves Sam Smith) and accidentally added 1 extra lb of wheat/barlet DME that was supposed to be saved for the priming sugar. So my OG was 1.060. I guess it will just be a little heavy on the alcohol.
 
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