Pre-boil gravity adjustments

How far off on your pre-boil gravity do you have to be before you worry about any adjustments - adding DME or diluting with water? 5 pts, 10pts?

Also, if adding DME, is it best to add at the beginning of the boil, mid way through or near the end?

It all depends on you, and how badly you want to hit the target gravity. You'd have to be a lot more than 10 pts off before you would have beer in a few weeks.

From the opinions I've seen, the majority suggest late boil additions of DME, unless you are really concerned about hop utilization for the bittering hops and the gravity being off affecting that.

Brew on

I've never added DME to compensate for a missed OG. It just feels wrong in principle to compensate for poor efficiency. There are times when I wish I sparged less, and resorted to a longer boil to reduce the volume.

If you can't consistently hit a predicted OG, how would you ever be able to replicate the recipe on a different day? It seems like a short-sighted solution to add more extract or dilute the wort to account for inaccuracies in the brewing process.

specharka said:

If you can't consistently hit a predicted OG, how would you ever be able to replicate the recipe on a different day? It seems like a short-sighted solution to add more extract or dilute the wort to account for inaccuracies in the brewing process.

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Speaking as someone who had also never added DME to compensate for a missed OG, I think keeping some DME on hand to adjust your gravity on the event something goes wrong with the mash is a completely sane thing to do. Stuff happens. The first time I tried a new bazooka screen or a different crush setting, I've had wild swings in efficiency. I'm content to make a mild out of my mistakes but others might not be. Adding DME to get back to a target OG isn't cheating or anything. You're still making beer.

And as for the original question, I might not sweat 3 or 4 points, but if you're getting closure to 10 then I might think a longer boil or DME could be useful.

Did this just a couple days ago. My first time mashing in winter temps destroyed my hopes that my summertime insulation habit would be acceptable. Lesson learned.

I'd imagine that all all-grain brewers strive for consistent mashing practices. When you come up short, take the time to figure out why and take steps to improve your process. THAT SAID, I don't feel the need to "do penance" by drinking five gallons (or more!) of watery, sad beer. Drop in a pound or two of extract to make up the lost efficiency and brew on.

Hey, I meant it to be a partial mash recipe all along!

i dont really feel concerned with it. if im a bit off, not too worried. It sometimes a bummer, but not really a big deal. I just started crushing my own grains, and my first brew was supposed to be 1080, and i got 1069. I just ran with it.

Because I'm a tinkerer I seem to miss my target more than I like. I'm getting closer to dialing things in, but I don't hesitate to add DME if I come up low. I usually do a gravity check with a refractometer at 15 minutes. I use Beersmith to calculate the addition. And try to add the DME by the 10 minute mark to ensure sanitation of the wort. I tend to do it more if I'm low. If my Gravity is higher I take that as a good sign and just go with it.

hannibalmdq said:

Speaking as someone who had also never added DME to compensate for a missed OG, I think keeping some DME on hand to adjust your gravity on the event something goes wrong with the mash is a completely sane thing to do. Stuff happens. The first time I tried a new bazooka screen or a different crush setting, I've had wild swings in efficiency. I'm content to make a mild out of my mistakes but others might not be. Adding DME to get back to a target OG isn't cheating or anything. You're still making beer.

And as for the original question, I might not sweat 3 or 4 points, but if you're getting closure to 10 then I might think a longer boil or DME could be useful.

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Yeah, my last two brews came in a little low (2 points each) but I made some poor mash efficiency assumptions which impacted my recipe calculations. Which I am using as a learning experience for the next beer I make. The point is that using DME as a crutch to lean on might make you less vigilant about having an accurate recipe or process control.

I agree, if you're still dialing in your system and you're a little light on your gravity after the boil then by all means add some DME for the last five minutes of the boil to bring it up. That's better than boiling longer and ending up with less beer! Since your gravity is lower than expected you will get more out of your hops so boiling longer is only going to increase bitterness from the late additions so that's why I don't like to boil longer.

If your efficiency is low then figure out why and try to improve it or fix your recipe to allow for your system so you won't need the DME next time.

Brew often and learn things!

When I hit all my numbers on the nose is when I start worrying...........

tootal said:

I agree, if you're still dialing in your system and you're a little light on your gravity after the boil then by all means add some DME for the last five minutes of the boil to bring it up. That's better than boiling longer and ending up with less beer! Since your gravity is lower than expected you will get more out of your hops so boiling longer is only going to increase bitterness from the late additions so that's why I don't like to boil longer.

If your efficiency is low then figure out why and try to improve it or fix your recipe to allow for your system so you won't need the DME next time.

Brew often and learn things!

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If you need to boil longer, do the boiling longer before any hops are added. This way you can adjust volume and gravity with added extract (or even water) PREBOIL so that you'll be exactly where you need to be once it's time to add hops. Need to add an hour to the boil? Boil an hour, THEN add your 60 minute hops and boil that extra hour.

Personally, I seldom need to correct (and I basically never do, last time I corrected was a Barleywine years ago when I was still getting used to the equipment at the time and came in 15 points SG low). I'm usually within 0.2 degrees plato of my target (a little less than 1 point of SG), and my preboil is usually spot on. My problem is that my gas stove (my only option) doesn't get a consistent boil strength so it's my post-boil volume that is the iffy part (+/- 0.1 gallon or so), and not my efficiency.

Usually if I miscalculate efficiency I undershoot efficiency (and overshoot gravity) and not the other way around. The furthest off I've been lately was the Kölsch I just did, where a combo of long decoction mash plus mashout plus fly sparge left me at 94% efficiency and a full 1.1 Plato over target (about 4 points SG). But generally if I end up significantly over (by my standards) I'm only about 0.5 Plato.

Here is a calculator to figure how much DME to add

http://merrycuss.com/calc/gravityadjustmentextract.html