Last night I put together Northern Brewer's Grand Cru lambic kit. I followed it to a 'T' using the correct amounts of water, hitting my temperatures... But in the end when I added water to get it to 5 gallons, and took a hydro reading, it came out to 1.03 at 76 deg. Fahrenheit and the instructions said it should be 1.045. After feeling sad, I didn't pitch my yeast starter thinking I might dump it and try again tonight.
I did notice while sparging that a bunch of the grain wasn't cracked open. I could open up pieces and see all the goodness inside.
I'm curious what went wrong, and what I should do. Most of the responses in threads like this are "don't dump it, see how it turns out". I don't want to tie up a fermenter and wait a year just to see how a mistake turns out.
I did notice while sparging that a bunch of the grain wasn't cracked open. I could open up pieces and see all the goodness inside.
I'm curious what went wrong, and what I should do. Most of the responses in threads like this are "don't dump it, see how it turns out". I don't want to tie up a fermenter and wait a year just to see how a mistake turns out.