Hello need some help guidance on extract Pliny kit

[GJOCONNELL]

After much pushing from friends I took the home brew plunge and Santa brought me an army of stuff and I finally got a chance to try it out.

Completely new to home brewing so I started with a Pliny Clone extract kit from Morebeer which is 10 minutes from my house.

Anyway sanitized like a mofo (I have mild OCD for cleaning so brewing is a natural fit). Anyway it was cold as all hell last night and as a newbie I didn't adjust the amount of water I started with (something I learned last night) and the OG after getting the wort down to 68 F was 1.092 and the fill meter on the keggle registered a hair above 3.5 gallons. So on the advice of my buddy he had me add water (he told me to use the 5 gallon bucket of star sans and crop it in another bucket and fill the previously star san bucket with a couple gallons and bring to temp (70) and add to the wort then send to frementer.

I added one gallon of water to the wort and took another reading @ 68 degrees and it came up ~ 1.062 OG and the target is 1.072-1.076. Anyway I pitched the yeast (White Labs Golden Ale 001 liquid) after aerating the wort.

Should I add some DME to the fermenter? The fermentation process hasn't gone 24 hrs yet. Should I boil some water and drop in a 1 lbs of DME then add to the fermenter?

Or just let it be. Wondering if I should try to get the OG back a little closer.

Sorry for the long post....

 

[RM-MN]

With an extract kit the OG that the kit specifies is what you get if you add the right amount of water. You can't miss like you can if you are all grain brewing because the malt extract has a set amount of sugars. However, you can get a bad reading because mixing the water you add with the wort is really difficult to mix properly and you typically get a lower reading because you get more water than concentrated wort. Some people manage to get a sample that is more wort than water and then it appears that they have overshot the OG but it really is just a bad job of mixing.

Your kit is designed to produce about 5 gallons of wort so add water until you get to the 5 gallon or thereabouts but don't do it after the fermentation starts as you will add oxygen to the fermenter and that can cause oxidation. At this point with this batch, sit back and relax. Let the yeast turn your wort into beer. Enjoy the process and the beer that it produces and learn what you can from this batch. You'll do better on the next batch.

 

[GJOCONNELL]

With an extract kit the OG that the kit specifies is what you get if you add the right amount of water. You can't miss like you can if you are all grain brewing because the malt extract has a set amount of sugars. However, you can get a bad reading because mixing the water you add with the wort is really difficult to mix properly and you typically get a lower reading because you get more water than concentrated wort. Some people manage to get a sample that is more wort than water and then it appears that they have overshot the OG but it really is just a bad job of mixing.

Your kit is designed to produce about 5 gallons of wort so add water until you get to the 5 gallon or thereabouts but don't do it after the fermentation starts as you will add oxygen to the fermenter and that can cause oxidation. At this point with this batch, sit back and relax. Let the yeast turn your wort into beer. Enjoy the process and the beer that it produces and learn what you can from this batch. You'll do better on the next batch.

Thanks I didn't add anything after the fermentation starts I just topped off to get to five gallons and then sealed it up and once I hit 68 F I pitched the liquid yeast which had been warming up inside for a couple hours after shaking the fermenter for a couple minutes to aerate.

My brew buddy told me he didn't think it was going to be an issue at all but that I boiled too hot during the hop phase and it boiled off too much liquid and to go with gentle boil next time because he thinks the OG would have been spot on without the boil off (it was cold outside).

Anyway I just checked the fermenter and the airlock has a steady bubble going with an occasional violent bubble so the yeast is doing its thing. Next time a lower level boil.