Low OG For Your Consideration.

[FifteenTen]

For the record, I am relaxed, I’m not worried, I’ve had several homebrews.

However, I am new to this and I thought I’d run my recipe and process by those in the know and who better than the HBT community.

The recipe calls for an OG of 1.049, I got 1.043 and that is adjusted for temperature.

The recipe is an American Pale Ale ala Stoudt’s provided by Homebrew USA out of Norfolk, Va. It is as follows:

6.5 lbs Light LME
1 lb Crystal 20L
½ oz Cascade 60)
½ oz Cascade 25) (I did 3/4 oz, its my second brewing of this recipe and wanted more flavor)
½ oz Cascade 10) (Again 3/4 oz for this brewing)
½ oz Cascade 00)
WLP001 [California Ale Yeast (not that it affects gravity, just wanted to give whole recipe)]

I heated 1 gallon of bottled drinking water to 160̊ and added the 1 lb of Crystal in a bag. I agitated the bag every 10 minutes.
Steeped for 30 minutes. The temp was 146̊ after 30 minutes.
Added ~3 lbs of LME and then another gallon and half of bottled drinking water.
Heated to boil, added 60 minute hops and set timer.
Added the 25 min hops at, you guessed it, 25 minutes.
At 18 minutes. I removed from heat, added the remaining LME, returned to boil and reset timer for 18 minutes. That took more or less 10 minutes.
At 0 minutes I added the 0 minute hops and removed from heat. I let it sit for 15 minutes and chilled in an ice bath.
I don’t remember exactly how long it took to chill to 75̊ but I’m guessing it was about 45 minutes. I topped of with a touch more than 3 gallons of drinking water for a total of 5 gallons in fv. Aerated by shaking the ever loving manure out of it for 4 minutes. Took my hydrometer sample and pitched the yeast at about 4 PM on Friday. The air lock was active Saturday morning when I woke up, but that is not the issue.

I’m not concerned about a beer that is lower in ABV. I was just wondering if those of you in the know had any idea as to why I did not hit the recipe’s stated 1.049 OG.

Thanking you in advance, FifteenTen.

 

[djsethall]

Weird. I just ran your recipe through beersmith and it gives me a sg of 1.058. That was as an extract only. Partial mash gives me 1.062

 

[djsethall]

4.25 lbs of lme gives me 1.043. Did you weigh out your LME or just trust the package?

 

[FifteenTen]

So per recipe I missed by 6 points, according to beersmith I missed by 15 points. I'm going to need another homebrew...

I trusted LHBS...

 

[beergolf]

Most likely youndid not mix the top off water enough and did not get an accurate reading. With extract it is almost impossible to miss your OG.

 

[FifteenTen]

I hear what you are saying, but my noob brain says: Wouldn't shaking for 4 minutes mix the wort and water? My noob brain is also praying that you are correct.

 

[djsethall]

Most likely youndid not mix the top off water enough and did not get an accurate reading. With extract it is almost impossible to miss your OG.

Unless my numbers are way off if Beersmith (potential of 1.044 per lb/gal) the lhbs is wrong also. Do ou still have the package the lme came in?

 

[FifteenTen]

My LHBS has LME in giant blue barrels. They pour into white plastic containers which they set on a scale. I reuse the same containers as they will credit you with $1.50 if you bring your own LME container. But I must admit, your question intrigues me. Why do you ask?

 

[djsethall]

My LHBS has LME in giant blue barrels. They pour into white plastic containers which they set on a scale. I reuse the same containers as they will credit you with $1.50 if you bring your own LME container. But I must admit, your question intrigues me. Why do you ask?

Ok, liquid extract. Just ran it through Beersmith and it gave me a sg of 1.052. The reason I asked is that some manufacturers put the gravity potential on the package. I.E. 1lb/gal=1.044. The brand they use must have a bit more water in it to get a sg of 1.049. Makes me wonder if they do any kind of spot checks of the ingredients they sell or just go with old tried and trued recipes that have different potential gravities and haven't adjusted their recipes for the different syrups.

 

[Mongrel]

Ok, liquid extract. Just ran it through Beersmith and it gave me a sg of 1.052. The reason I asked is that some manufacturers put the gravity potential on the package. I.E. 1lb/gal=1.044. The brand they use must have a bit more water in it to get a sg of 1.049. Makes me wonder if they do any kind of spot checks of the ingredients they sell or just go with old tried and trued recipes that have different potential gravities and haven't adjusted their recipes for the different syrups.

You're running it as a partial mash to get 1.052. This is just extract with steeping grains, so use the extract option. Beersmith gives 1.048, so pretty much exactly what he was expecting.

OP, I'm sure it's just a mixing issue. Don't worry about the OG on extract brews, as long as you use the right amount of top off water, you'll be fine. Only issue I've had with extract (also of a blue barrel variety) was fermentation crapping out at 1.020.

 

[djsethall]

Gotcha. Ran it as extract only instead of pm.

 

[FifteenTen]

Thanks for your replys, I'm still learning, but I guess you are always learning...I'm just still learning the basics.

 

[ajf]

I hear what you are saying, but my noob brain says: Wouldn't shaking for 4 minutes mix the wort and water? My noob brain is also praying that you are correct.

No. shaking for 4 minutes will not adequately mix the wort and water. Stirring for 4 minutes would do the trick especially if you stir from top to bottom rather than side to side. The good news is that the yeasts will do the mixing for you, but then you will have an even lower gravity.

-a.

 

[hops2it]

On a side note, you mentioned using an ice bath, then topping up with water. Not sure if that was your true order of steps or if you just mentioned the top off water after the fact. If that was indeed the case, you might add the water before icing. It will help with cooling so your ice bath will take less time.

 

[ChandlerBang]

On a side note, you mentioned using an ice bath, then topping up with water. Not sure if that was your true order of steps or if you just mentioned the top off water after the fact. If that was indeed the case, you might add the water before icing. It will help with cooling so your ice bath will take less time.

Except that now he'll have to go from ~100* to 65* on 5 gallons instead of 2 gallons which may be a PITA if he uses the kitchen sink like I do. When I do stove top partial boils, I cool with a tap water bath a couple times, then once I get below ~120* I go with the ice bath. I can take 2.5 gallons from boiling to pitching temp in about 12 minutes. And only use two or three pounds of ice.

BUT, if you can cool your top off water to nearly freezing, I could get behind that.