Okay, so today was my first attempt at an all grain brew.
After mashing 8.5 lbs. of two row pale malt and 8 oz. of 120L crystal malt I yielded 6.0 gallons of wort which showed a gravity of 1.032. This reading was taken while the wort was still 150 degrees. Does temp. have an impact on the gravity reading using a hydrometer? If not, I attribute the low reading (poor efficiency) to my el-cheapo mash tun (48 quart ice chest with stainless washing machine hose braid) or maybe my thermometer isn't accurate.
In any event, since I thought my pre-boil gravity was low, I added 8 oz. of DME during my hour long boil. At the end of the boil and cooled to 70 degrees, the gravity ended up being 1.058. So .032 seemed lower than I was expecting and .058 is higher than I expected. Thus I now wonder if taking a gravity reading while the wort was 150 degrees may have been the problem and maybe my gravity was actually higher than 1.032??
So someone please help the newbie understand what was going on!
After mashing 8.5 lbs. of two row pale malt and 8 oz. of 120L crystal malt I yielded 6.0 gallons of wort which showed a gravity of 1.032. This reading was taken while the wort was still 150 degrees. Does temp. have an impact on the gravity reading using a hydrometer? If not, I attribute the low reading (poor efficiency) to my el-cheapo mash tun (48 quart ice chest with stainless washing machine hose braid) or maybe my thermometer isn't accurate.
In any event, since I thought my pre-boil gravity was low, I added 8 oz. of DME during my hour long boil. At the end of the boil and cooled to 70 degrees, the gravity ended up being 1.058. So .032 seemed lower than I was expecting and .058 is higher than I expected. Thus I now wonder if taking a gravity reading while the wort was 150 degrees may have been the problem and maybe my gravity was actually higher than 1.032??
So someone please help the newbie understand what was going on!