Low initial SG

[Hedley]

Hi Brewers,

I did my first Brew recipe yesterday, following John Palmer's How to Brew and using the Cincinatti Pale Ales recipe (adjusted to half batch). My initial SG reading is 1026. Is this very low?

Kind regards,

Ross

 

[Hedley]

I was also wondering if there is anything I can do about it at this stage. With wine I can just add sugar to raise the SG, but can I add dry malt extract in the same way, or does that need to be boiled?

 

[flars]

Was this an extract or all grain recipe? Can you post your recipe? 1.026 may be to low for a pale ale. Did the recipe have an estimated OG? It is possible to add aerated and cooled DME at the beginning of the fermentation to make up SG points.

Does your hydrometer read 1.000 in distilled water at the calibration temperature?

 

[Hedley]

Hi flars,

It was extract (combo of dry and syrup). Three things that may have contributed to low SG:

I lost some wort due to evaporation
I added wort to a little too much plain water in fermentation bucket
I may have been a touch light on the syrup weight

Adjusting for temp initial SG was more like 1.028.

 

[Hedley]

It was the Cincinattie Pales Ale here:
http://howtobrew.com/book/section-1/boiling-and-cooling/first-recipe

I guess it will just mean I have a low vol beer (2.6-3.6 ish). Yes!

 

[Hedley]

I mean 'yes?' rather than 'yes!'

 

[Hedley]

I halved the recipe. I ended up with 2.25 litres of fluid in fermenter, 1.5 of which was just water and the rest the wort. As mention SG was 1.028.

What would you recommend I do to raise the vol by a percent or two?
Could I boil up say 0.25 litres of water and add some dry malt extract (how much?) let cool and add to fermenter?

 

[Hedley]

Correction: I ended up with 2.25 gallons of fluid in fermenter. 1.25 gallon was plain water, and a gallon wort.

And I meant that o was thinking of boiling up quarter of a gallon of water and dry extract.

 

[Hedley]

http://merrycuss.com/calc/gravityadjustmentextract.html
This website seems to indicate that if my initial SG in 1.028, and my target is 1.050 (for American Pale Ale) I should add 1.25 pounds dry malt. I entered 2.5 gallons as vol instead of 2.25 to allow for quarter gallon extra water which I will dissolve extract in.

Do those calculations seem okay? And is it okay to add this about 20 hours after taking initial SG?

 

[RM-MN]

Whoa, pardner, give us a chance to digest what your question was. If you did your calculations right and didn't halve the extract and double the water expected, your OG is probably about 1.050 to 1.055. The difference between that and what you measured is poor mixing and getting more water than wort for you sample. It's really difficult to get the concentrated wort to mix well with water so just go with the OG I estimated because the malt extract will have a guaranteed amount of sugars in it.

You are expected to lose some water to evaporation when you boil the wort but the sugars stay there which then makes your wort more conventrated and more dense so it is harder to get a good mix when you add the top off and that gives you either a very low reading with the hydrometer or extremely high depending on where you got the sample from. Most of the time it will be very low but the amount of sugars is still where it should be to get you the right OG so just relax and let the yeast do the mixing and making beer. You don't need or want to add anything at this point. Your beer will be about 5% alcohol.

 

[Hedley]

Cheers for that.

I did half the extract and the water (as recipe was for 5 gallons and I only made 2.5 gallons).