OG off?

[WIMARIPA]

I'm bet this question has been asked before but I couldn't find the answer after a forum search:

I brewed an AHS fat tire clone extract (with specialty grains) kit and the goal AG was 1.051 but my og was 1.07...

I followed the recipe and the only reason i can think of is because i didnt manage to strain much of anything out of the brew. I tried but my strainer clogged so i mostly just ended up dumping everything from the pot into the fermenter.

Any other reasons why this might be? Will this be a problem for my beer?

 

[jkatz419]

straining (or lack thereof) will not affect the OG, all that does is remove hop and break material. Neither of which will change your OG. What effects the OG are how much extract and water you use. It sounds like you did a partial boil, i.e. you boiled your kit with about 3 gallons of water. The kit was probably designed to make a 5 gallon batch. When you were done boiling did you add the wort to your fermenter and then top it up to 5 gallons? Or you could have read the hydrometer wrong, did you correct for temperature difference? Or your wort might not have been mixed all the way when you took your sample. If you added your boiled wort and then cold water on top, it might not have mixed and you pulled a sample from the heavy wort.

 

[WIMARIPA]

I did have about 4 gallons in the pot which I topped up to 5 1/4 when I added to the pot. I didnt correct for the temperature but I think it was between 60 and 70 degrees so I doubt my reading was off that much.

 

[JLem]

When you do a partial boil and then top off, it is very difficult to fully mix the wort and get an accurate OG reading. The less dense top-off water tends to sit on top of the more dense kettle liquor. This usually results in a lower-then-expected OG if you sample take a sample from the top, but if you happened to pull your sample deeper, you would get a higher-than-expected OG.

With extract batches, if you mixed the appropriate amount of extract into the appropriate volume of water, your actual OG will not be very far from the expected OG, regardless of what your hydrometer reading tells you. Your OG is most likely right around where you expected it to be.

 

[Revvy]

We get this question 3-4 times every day

It's a pretty common issue for ANYONE topping off with water in the fermenter (and that includes partial mashes, extract or all grain revcipes) to have an error in reading the OG...In fact, it is actually nearly impossible to mix the wort and the top off water in a way to get an accurate OG reading...

Brewers get a low reading if they get more of the top off water than the wort, conversely they get a higher number if they grabbed more of the extract than the top off water in their sample.

When I am doing an extract with grain recipe I make sure to stir for a minimum of 5 minutes (whipping up a froth to aerate as well) before I draw a grav sample and pitch my yeast....It really is an effort to integrate the wort with the top off water...This is a fairly common new brewer issue we get on here...unless you under or over topped off or the final volume for the kit was 5 gallons and you topped off to 5.5, then the issue, sorry to say, is "operator error"

More than likely your true OG is really what it's supposed to be. And it will mix itself fine during fermentation.

And just use the number it says in the instructions as the true OG, because it will be.

 

[Aschecte]

probably no more then lack of adequate mixing as all others have stated. The other possibilty is your water volumes were off but it sounds like you are pretty confident they were on.RDWHAHB

 

[WIMARIPA]

Thanks for all the replies. It's already bubbling away so I'm not worried, more curious as to what could have caused it. I thought a cursory stirring would mix it effectively but I guess the two fluids of such different densities tend to settle at different levels. Now my bubbling yeasties can do the job for me!

 

[JLem]

Thanks for all the replies. It's already bubbling away so I'm not worried, more curious as to what could have caused it. I thought a cursory stirring would mix it effectively but I guess the two fluids of such different densities tend to settle at different levels. Now my bubbling yeasties can do the job for me!

Exactly! Now sit back and let the yeast do their job. Don't touch it for at least 2 weeks - 3 weeks would be even better. Patience is your beer's friend.