Kolsch

Hello everyone.
I just made a kolsch style beer. The recipe calls for:

6.0 lbs of LME pilsner
1.5 lbs of LME wheat

.75 oz of hallertauer mittelfruh for 60 min
.50 oz of hallertauer mittelfruh for 30 min
.50 oz of hallertauer mittelfruh for 15 min

I put the extract in with 20-30 min left of the boil. So to keep the extract from darkening. My target SG should have been 1.044, but I got 1.032. I cooled it down to 75* in about 40 min, using ice, not in the wort. Any ideas what I did wrong?

Thank you in advance.

Did you adjust your gravity reading for temperature? At 75deg F that would give you a few more points, not enough to hit your mark but closer anyways.

No. I did not think to adjust my hydrometer reading. Glad you said something. I was thinking just calibrate it to make sure that at 60* you have 1.050. Thanks for enlightening me.

Did you do a full or partial boil? If you did a full boil and used too much water, then your gravity will suffer.

If you took your sample from the fermenter without stirring or shaking it up first, the water from the ice would be on top and not mixed well. The only way to screw up the gravity on an extract brew is to not add the right amount of extract, or not add the right amount of water. If you added the right amount of extract and you have 5 gallons in the fermenter, your OG is probably right on.