Brewed the 2nd batch last night

Everything went well...things got a little hazy towards the end because we were drinking a lot of beer (chimay being on that list) but otherwise things went well...At the end after cooling down to 80 I took my hydrometer reading and got a reading of 1.068 the recipe kit I used was expecting 1.070 - 1.074 im just wondering what kinds of things would bring my reading down lower then the target...what things should I try to work on that would bring it up a tad next time?

BTW the wort sky rocketed into active fermentation w/in 5 hours or so of pitching..its sitting in a dark closet at temps ranging from 68 to 72 I will let it sit in the primary for 2 weeks before I move to secondary regardless if the airlock stops giving me signs of yeast fornication ....Still not sure if im going to move to secondary or just go from primary to bottling...I read so many different sides on the subject im still stuck...And also I think a little of the crappy watermelon smirnoff vodka I had in the air lock got into the wort..but only a tiny bit so hopefully im not making a watermelon brew on accident

this is a double India Pale Ale btw that is supposed to be hopptastical...cant wait

The hydrometer is usually set to take accurate gravity readings at 60 degrees. You took your reading at 80 degrees, so the wort was a bit warm, which would make the solution a little less dense -- thus your low reading. If you adjusted for temperature, I think you'd find that your actual OG is right where you want it. Probably in the 1.070 - 1.074 range.

thanks for the reply I actually did the anti-noob thing and searched a little bit harder and found the same answer....I read that taking the reading should be around 60 but I dont like the idea of cooling the wort down that low to take a reading and pitching the yeast at that temp....Do you guys actually cool down that low to take a reading then pitch? Or does everyone just adjust for the temp change..

i usually wait to take the reading until the wort is ready for pitching... i do what i can to get a decent efficiency and don't really sweat it, if it's low, it's low or vice versa. usually the wort is around 70 deg at that point and the correction for 10 degrees is like + .001, so there is a negligible difference... and i think 20 degrees is only .002, again, not a big deal. If i hit 1.068 with a target of 1.070, i'm a happy camper.

FuelshopMcgee said:

thanks for the reply I actually did the anti-noob thing and searched a little bit harder and found the same answer....I read that taking the reading should be around 60 but I dont like the idea of cooling the wort down that low to take a reading and pitching the yeast at that temp....Do you guys actually cool down that low to take a reading then pitch? Or does everyone just adjust for the temp change..

Click to expand...

Just cool the sample down to around 60.
No need to cool down the whole batch.

duh...dzlater dont know why that had not occured to me...now I feel stupid thanks

I've got one more question for you guys...im not freaking out or worrying but I will still have a beer to calm my nerves...The first 24 hours the fermentation was going like mad then went to zero activity in the airlock I am not going to bother with a hydrometer reading and risk contamination but I did notice that because of the super activity there is a large amount of (Krausen I think is the term) built up on the edges of the bucket towards the top that is not touching any liquid...Is it beneficial to scrape this off and return it back to the beer or should I leave it there? Its just a lot of brown residue that seems to be normal I just wanted to see if I should scrape that down or not...

No scraping of the krausen crud.
just leave it be.

will do..I left it be but while I was in there I took a hydrometer reading just because Im a curious guy and after 48 hours it dropped from 1.070 (adjusted reading for heat) to 1.024 seems like things are moving along nicely especially because I tasted the brew and I can tell its going to be good already...an extreme hop flavor tightened up the aft section of my jaw nicely Things should mellow out a bit over the next 6 to 7 weeks though.