harrysaxon
Member
Hi all,
I brewed my fourth extract beer today, Midwest's Hop Head double IPA. Everything went brilliantly, until the end. I aerated the roughly 2.5 gal. post-boil wort by pouring it between buckets several times, and built up such a head of foam that I couldn't float the hydrometer in the bucket and get a reading after topping off to 5 gallons, as I've done in the past (for some reason we aerated before topping off, I did it the other way around the first 3 times).
So I used a wine thief and took a reading in it, as I don't have a jar. I'm not wild about reading in the thief, as it's hard to get it floating freely, but I have managed to fiddle it around for accurate readings before.
Anyways, projected SG was 1.071. Reading in the thief was 1.095, temperature corrected. The hydrometer is tested and accurate.
Do the more experienced brewers here suspect this is an erroneous reading because of the hydrometer sticking to the sides, or did something weird happen? I pitched a starter of Wyeast 1056 at a cell count of roughly 250 billion - even if the reading is accurate, will it be sufficient?
Much appreciate any feedback.
I brewed my fourth extract beer today, Midwest's Hop Head double IPA. Everything went brilliantly, until the end. I aerated the roughly 2.5 gal. post-boil wort by pouring it between buckets several times, and built up such a head of foam that I couldn't float the hydrometer in the bucket and get a reading after topping off to 5 gallons, as I've done in the past (for some reason we aerated before topping off, I did it the other way around the first 3 times).
So I used a wine thief and took a reading in it, as I don't have a jar. I'm not wild about reading in the thief, as it's hard to get it floating freely, but I have managed to fiddle it around for accurate readings before.
Anyways, projected SG was 1.071. Reading in the thief was 1.095, temperature corrected. The hydrometer is tested and accurate.
Do the more experienced brewers here suspect this is an erroneous reading because of the hydrometer sticking to the sides, or did something weird happen? I pitched a starter of Wyeast 1056 at a cell count of roughly 250 billion - even if the reading is accurate, will it be sufficient?
Much appreciate any feedback.