OG 1.120 - should have been around 1.075

[spbrhs07]

Hey everyone I've been brewing for about 6 months now. My first 3 batches were from extract kits and all turned out amazing. When it comes to kits I feel like it's like baking a cake- follow the directions and get a good beer. I've now begun to try to make my own recipes. The first was intended to be a lighter wheat beer. After fermentation, it tasted like grapefruit juice! Turns out I just didn't research my hops throughly enough... To make sure I don't end up with 5 gallons of garbage, I bought a smaller kettle and some 1 gallon jugs to make mini experimental batches.

Today I brewed my first 1 gallon batch here's the recipe that I formulated using Brewers Friend...

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Grains were steeped for 25 minutes starting at a temp of about 170 and was down to 150 when I removed the grain.

During the boil I lost about 75% of my water.

After everything was done I racked from the kettle to my 1 gallon glass jug and topped it off to 1 gallon.

I then took a gravity reading prior to pitching yeast and it came to 1.120!

What could have caused this? I'm wondering if while steeping the grains I could have gotten some sugar conversation, but that's not supposed to happen with specially grains, right? Or maybe my top off water hadn't mixed well with the wort?

Any input here regarding my technique and results would be greatly appreciated!

 

[thekraken]

I wonder what sugar talks about?

Was the wort cooled when you took the gravity reading? Maybe you mis measured your DME and added more than you thought? You can't get more sugars out of it than you put in it, at 100% extraction efficiency from those grains beersmith tells me that recipe would only get me an OG of 1.102.

 

[mrgrimm101]

It could be that your wort was not mixed well enough with the top up water. What was the temp of the wort when you took the reading?

 

[spbrhs07]

I wonder what sugar talks about?

Oh you know... Just hanging out... Talking about how they're about to get devoured by yeast. Saying goodbye to loved ones... Yeah.. damn autocorrect...

Actually the temp was the first thing I checked. It was right where it should be. About 72 degrees

 

[mrgrimm101]

Did you calibrate your hydrometer? If so, at what temp? I've always read that you want a sample to be at 60F to take a reading. This is a baseline for hydrometers. Any variations by 10 degrees up or down will skew the reading by about 0.002, but that doesn't explain why yours is so off.

Did you put the hydrometer right in the 1 gallon jug, or did you draw a sample in a separate container?

 

[spbrhs07]

Did you calibrate your hydrometer? If so, at what temp? I've always read that you want a sample to be at 60F to take a reading. This is a baseline for hydrometers. Any variations by 10 degrees up or down will skew the reading by about 0.002, but that doesn't explain why yours is so off.

Did you put the hydrometer right in the 1 gallon jug, or did you draw a sample in a separate container?

I've never really heard of calibrating a hydrometer... But I think it's factory calibrated for 68.

I did draw off a sample from the jug.

 

[mrgrimm101]

Hmmm I'm really not sure. I'd guess that the sample wasn't mixed well enough.

 

[spbrhs07]

If it's not mixed well enough, will that negatively affect the beer?

 

[thekraken]

Nah. couldn't imagine why, it would homogenize and the yeast will churn it up pretty good.

 

[mrgrimm101]

No as active fermentation occurs, the yeast will kick up into suspension and I always assume it creates a natural mixing, swirling motion.

 

[Rootski]

Strange - it should not be that far off. Some real possibilities could be that you read the hydrometer wrong (or the hydrometer is drastically off), or you added more ingredients than the recipe calls for. Your recipe calls for two 12 oz additions of DME. DME typically comes in 1 pound bags which is 16 oz. Could that be it?

 

[spbrhs07]

Your recipe calls for two 12 oz additions of DME. DME typically comes in 1 pound bags which is 16 oz. Could that be it?

I bought a 1lb bag of wheat DME and a 1lb bag of pilsner DME then measured out 12oz of each using a digital scale.

 

[Brettomomyces]

I suspect maybe everything wasn't mixed completely when you took the sample...otherwise you might have just witnessed a miracle

Or you used more extract than the recipe called for.

On a side note...Munich malt isn't intended for just steeping, and needs to be mashed. Basically it'll add a lot of unconverted starches and make it cloudy without mashing, and you won't get the same flavor as well. A partial mash is when you doing a small mash just for a little specialty grains and then also use extract for most of the fermentables, and something you may want to look into.

You got some sugar from the crystal malts, but that was reflected in the numbers you got from the recipe calculator.

 

[spbrhs07]

Off topic...
Not enough head room?

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[speeddemon190]

Depending on how crazy the fermentation gets that may be too little...rig up a blow off tube and you wont have to worry

 

[spbrhs07]

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Yup... Should have rigged a blowoff...