Too Low of a gravity reading?

I have a Bass ale knockoff that has been sitting in the primary for 3 weeks now. The OG was 1.046 (it was supposed to be around 1.051 but I think I made a newb mistake of not mixing the wort and water top off before taking the OG) and I just took another reading and it is 1.004 (supposed to be 1.013 final gravity). Is this too low of a reading? Did I screw up to get this low or will it be OK? It sure smelled and looked good. Any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Assuming you used a pre-bought kit from a web site or a homebrew store, you may have added what are called "adjuncts" - which are 100% fermentable things like brown sugar, maple syrup, etc. used to dry out a ferment.

If not then it could have been caused by the combination of yeast and ferment temp, depending on what those were.

bmbigda said:

Assuming you used a pre-bought kit from a web site or a homebrew store, you may have added what are called "adjuncts" - which are 100% fermentable things like brown sugar, maple syrup, etc. used to dry out a ferment.

If not then it could have been caused by the combination of yeast and ferment temp, depending on what those were.

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It was a AHS mini mash kit with grains and 5 lbs of extract and White labs British ale 005 liquid yeast. The fermenting temperature was 68-70 degrees.

It might be worth calibrating your hydrometer in distilled water to see if it truly reads 1.000 at 60 degrees.

in any case, no - it's not ruined. Worst case it's a bit dry and higher alcohol.

My current brew also used White Labs (though it was the California ale yeast), and went super low super fast. My starting gravity was 1.055, a few points higher than expected, and at 72F (the coldest stable temp in the house) hit 1.009 in four days. Tastes like beer though, so I racked to secondary and plan to let it sit for a few weeks before I bottle.

That would be an apparent attenuation of over 90% and if you used WLP002 that maxes out at about 70%. Make sure the temperature you record the gravity is what the hydrometer is calibrated for or make the adjustment using an online calculator.

I'm suspecting a miscalibrated hydrometer. With an extract kit, assuming you have the right volume of liquid, you should hit the gravity spot-on. Let's say that you actually have an OG of 1.051, yet the hydro reads 1.046. That gives you a hydro that reads 0.005 low. If this is the case, and you read a FG of 1.004, then you'd have an actual gravity of 1.009. This gives you an attenuation of about 82%, which is not out of the realm of possibility.

And frankly, with complaints of extract recipes getting stuck at 1.020, keep buying this brand of extract!

Thanks for the tips guys. I'll check the hydrometer theory out tomorrow.