hydrometer reading

[bigwill69]

Hey guys..just brewed my raspberry ale and took a reading. Now mind you this is my 3rd batch but my first time tryin to utilize the hydrometer..I got 1.080 at 70 degrees...i dont know how everyone has an expected or target gravity...this seemed a little high. This is what i used

• 3lbs breiss golden light dme
• 3lbs briess bavarian wheat dme
• 1lbs briess crystal 10l
• 1/2lbs briess victory
• 2oz cascade hopps (boil only no aroma)
• 1lbs clover honey (at last 10min.)
• wyeast 1056 smack pak

I steeped the grains for 30 min at 155 to 160 (the 40oz. of raspberrys will go in secondary) oh ya 2gal boil water. brew pal said i should have an OG of1.059 but it dosent factor in the honey..I need advice ...links to old threads anthing is a help:rockin:

 

[LVBen]

What is the total volume of water (cooled/post-boil)?

 

[bigwill69]

5 1/2 cooled

 

[bigwill69]

was i supose to take my reading before topping it off with the rest of my water. I took it just before pitching my yeast

 

[Just1pepsi]

regarding whether yeast is pitched or not, I doubt it making a noticeable different if any.

In my experience:
- run of the mill hydrometers seem inaccurate
- if you put water on top of wort, the gravity reading will be off despite conventional (swirl it around) method of aeration, therefore making the reading pointless.. even under the assumption that the hyrdrometer is accurate, you are not getting an accurate idea of what the OG is anyway.

-Give it ample time to ferment, at least a week, or more depending, and take gravity readings. Don't consider it done until those readings remain unchanged over time.. so be sure to try and read it as accurately as possible. (This is a good time to taste test, and if it tastes like beer without carbonation, you've hit your target alcohol level, and in reality, does 1 point either way really matter? *edit, this is assuming gravity readings remain steady over time btw.)

in summary:
make your wort cleanly and precisely
give it good yeast to start with
be patient
Measure if you want to try and get a ballpark of what the gravity is
bottle/keg
enjoy
Tell your friends is 12% and watch them get the placebo effect.

 

[Yooper]

It's just not possible to get 1.080 with that amount of extract and honey.

If you have 5.5 gallons of wort, your OG is no more than 1.059 and that is WITH the honey. I suspect that topping up with water meant that the wort wasn't stirred extremely well, and you took a reading from the "heavier" wort that was boiled. That's really common, but if you ended up with 5.5 gallons of wort, it's not possible for more sugars to appear than what was already in the ingredients.

For DME, you'd get about 1.048 with 6 pounds of extract in 5.5 gallons of wort. The honey would give you another .006 or so, and the crystal malt and victory malt may provide a negligible amount.