Just had a rough brew day

[LeeBonesBrewing]

I just finished cleaning up after a pretty rough brew day. Brewed an Oatmeal Stout that I have made 2 other times. Same recipe, new brew stand. This was my 3rd brew on this stand and by far the worst. Stuck sparge, burner issues, temp controller overshoot on strike water. To top it off my target OG was 1.052 and it somehow ended up at 1.090 probably due to the overshoot on temp. Oh well it is in the fermenter and luckily I made a yeast starter, we will see if it turns into good beer or not.

 

[Black Island Brewer]

I'm laughing so hard I blew Tripel out my nose! How in **** do you get 1.090 from 1.052?!?! That would be like assuming you'll get 40% efficiency and getting 95% instead!

Dude, I am truly sorry for your tough brew day - I've been there. Hang in there, you will get it sorted out, and at the end of the day, brewing is like fishing: you might not get what you want, but you'll have fun doing it!

 

[motobrewer]

At least you ended up with wort. My worst brewday I ended up dumping the mash.

 

[LeeBonesBrewing]

I am trying to figure that out as well... Hydrometer must be broke!

 

[Zepth]

I've been doing a few upgrades lately myself, and more in the mail. Makes for dialing things in to be near impossible. I'm going to be the guy who says that there is something terribly wrong with missing the OG that much. Did you boil down to 1/2 the usual volume in fermenter somehow? Did the hydrometer bottom out? Could you post recipe and/or run it through a calculator to see if it is even possible to hit that efficiency?

Maybe this was the storm to get that black cloud out of the way. Hope things with the new setup work themselves out for you.

 

[LeeBonesBrewing]

9 lbs. British Two-Row malt
1 lb. oatmeal
1/2 lb. roast unmalted barley
1/4 lb. Chocolate Malt
1/2 lb. medium crystal malt
1 oz. Wye Challenger
1/2 oz. Willamettes
1/2 oz. Willamettes

Strike water @ 168
Mash at 154.... Controller was off so it stayed around 163 for the first 20 min of mash.

 

[day_trippr]

In a five gallon batch I'm getting an OG of 1.057 out of ^that^ (might be 52 points in 5.25 gallons, didn't check that).
And temperature really isn't going to move that needle (FG later on, sure, but sugars are sugar up front, and a pound of dextrins in a gallon of water sure looks similar to a pound of corn sugar).

Must've been a hydro error...


Cheers!

 

[brewkinger]

Hydro error or wort sample was WAYYYY concentrated.

Other than that, you have to have a BAD brewday as a benchmark so that you can gauge the GOOD brewdays.
And you had a doozie, so the rest are gonna be a lot less eventful.

Cheers!


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[LeeBonesBrewing]

Hydrometer was way off. Just checked it with tap water. I could barely sleep last night trying to figure out what happened!

 

[LeeBonesBrewing]

 

[Gixxer]

Wow! Thats of by a lot!

My brew day yesterday was long... I had no prep done the day before, so I had to do everything from start to finish... Started at 9AM and finished cleaning up at 6pm... Flies were giving me fits, and I got bit by fire ants during clean up... but I didnt really run into any problems...

 

[LeeBonesBrewing]

What would cause a Hydro to be off by that much???? I feel a lot better bc if I calculate the difference I am pretty close to my OG.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

One reason could be the paper in the hydrometer shifted up towards the too of the hydrometer. Also make sure you are checking your sample at the correct temp. The calibration temp is usually printed somewhere on the paper insert inside the hydrometer. Temps will also affect your hydrometer reading but I think temp errors would be off the other direction I.E. Read lower than actual if hotter than calibration temp. Also looking at your pic it appears the hydrometer is touching the sides of the cylinder. You want the hydrometer to not touch the sides of the cylinder your testing in to ensure you are getting the actual reading of the wort and not just a reading where the hydrometer stuck to the sides of the tube.


Sent from somewhere to someone

 

[SavaShip]

my target OG was 1.052 and it somehow ended up at 1.090

I am so sorry you had those troubles! At that big of an overshoot on gravity, did you consider adding some pasteurized water to split it into two 3/4 sized batches at your target gravity?

 

[roper4092]

Sorry for the day dude. I may have you beat though. I wasted an entire brew day because the meathead at the LHBS have me 10 pounds of carapils instead of 2-row. Didn't realize it until my OG that was supposed to be about 1.060 ended up at 1.020. Ended up finding a few grains in the paper bag he put it in and chewed it. I brought a few grains back to the dude for him to try, but he wasn't there. The owner was and he was apologetic and replaced all ingredients but it still didn't get me my day back.