Greyhound
Well-Known Member
I got my brewing equipment this morning for Christmas and immediately proceeded to ignore my wife & family while I brewed my first extract kit. I'm sure I'll pay for that later, but that's for another day...
Anyway, I did my best to follow the expert advice on these forums, in John Palmer's book, as well as the instructions that came with the kit. Everything went according to plan and I was feeling pretty good about my first batch of brew till I took the OG reading. The instructions said it should have been 1.042-1.046. I took the reading multiple times and kept coming up with 1.039 (1.040 at 59 F). The only reason I could think of was that maybe I topped off to more than 5 gallons, but I don't think so - it looked like it was at the 5 gallon line, but it was harder to read than I thought it would be.
So I guess I have 2 questions:
1) What's the most likely cause of a low OG, and
2) more importantly, how is this going to affect the taste of my beer?
I'm really hoping for a RDWHAHB here
If it helps, here's the extract kit & procedure I used:
Midwest's Irish Red, which includes:
6 lbs Gold LME
12 oz caramel 40L
2 oz Special B
2 oz Roasted Barley
1 oz Cascades Hops
1 oz Fuggle Hops
Steeped the grains in 3 gallons of water, added all of the LME & Cascades (60 minutes), added the Fuggles with 2 minutes remaining, cooled the wort, topped off to 5 gallons, took OG, pitched yeast.
Thanks in advance for the help - you guys are the best!
Anyway, I did my best to follow the expert advice on these forums, in John Palmer's book, as well as the instructions that came with the kit. Everything went according to plan and I was feeling pretty good about my first batch of brew till I took the OG reading. The instructions said it should have been 1.042-1.046. I took the reading multiple times and kept coming up with 1.039 (1.040 at 59 F). The only reason I could think of was that maybe I topped off to more than 5 gallons, but I don't think so - it looked like it was at the 5 gallon line, but it was harder to read than I thought it would be.
So I guess I have 2 questions:
1) What's the most likely cause of a low OG, and
2) more importantly, how is this going to affect the taste of my beer?
I'm really hoping for a RDWHAHB here
If it helps, here's the extract kit & procedure I used:
Midwest's Irish Red, which includes:
6 lbs Gold LME
12 oz caramel 40L
2 oz Special B
2 oz Roasted Barley
1 oz Cascades Hops
1 oz Fuggle Hops
Steeped the grains in 3 gallons of water, added all of the LME & Cascades (60 minutes), added the Fuggles with 2 minutes remaining, cooled the wort, topped off to 5 gallons, took OG, pitched yeast.
Thanks in advance for the help - you guys are the best!