Broke my hydrometer during preboil. Can I calulate OG?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

CarbonTom

Well-Known Member
Joined
Feb 18, 2014
Messages
338
Reaction score
38
I stupidly dropped my hydrometer back into my empty graduated cylinder after taking my preboil gravity.

If my preboil gravity was 1.050, volume was 14 gallons, and my post boil volume was 11.5 gal, is there any way to calculate out what my OG should have been?
 
If you're just boiling off water, you'll have the same total number of gravity points pre- and post-boil.

1.050 pre-boil gravity = 50 points per gallon; 50 * 14 gallons = 700 total points.

700 points / 11.5 gallons = 60.8696... points per gallon ≈ 1.061 post-boil gravity.
 
Make sure to subtract trub losses, otherwise you'd be assuming that brewhouse efficiency is the same as mash efficiency and that's likely not the case unless you dumped the entire kettle into primary.
 
Okay so the .5 was the trub. I recovered 11, since guess that would make it 1.064. Damn my efficiency was way too high. I wanted this to be 1.050. I guess this is the power of a good crush.
 
Back
Top