OG Way too high?

[berndawg84]

So I recently brewed my 4th beer, an extract Belgian Dubbel. I used a recipe from Northern Brewer, but didn't buy the kit. I went to my LHBS and bought the ingredients individually. I made a 5 gallon batch and brewed using the ingredients below. The OG was supposed to be 1.062 but my OG was a whopping 1.104 (and yes I did the temperature adjustment). Anyone know what may have happened? I did add most of the LME at the end of the boil, but I don't think that would affect it. This was my OG before adding the yeast starter of course, so the yeast starter mixed with DME may have raised my OG even more.

Any thoughts on why this may have happened? Again, I didn't add the 1 pound DME until the end of the boil, and added most of the LME with about 15 minutes left in the boil. I did steep the specialty grains first for 25 minutes, then went on to my boil. It's possible that my hydrometer isn't properly calibrated, I'd have to check that still..

I didn't do anything to correct the OG (I guess I should've looked up how to do that) and the beer has already been fermenting for a couple weeks. If my calculations are correct, I'll end up with an 11-12% dubbel, if that's even possible haha


O.G: 1.062 READY: 2 MONTHS
1–2 weeks primary, 1 month secondary,
1–2 weeks bottle conditioning
KIT INVENTORY:
SPECIALTY GRAIN
-- 0.25 lbs Belgian Cara 45
-- 0.25 lbs Belgian Special B
FERMENTABLES
-- 6.3 lbs Gold Malt syrup (60 min)
-- 1 Golden Light dry malt extract (60 min)
-- 1 lbs Dark Belgian Candi sugar (15 min)
HOPS & FLAVORINGS
-- 1 oz Tradition (60 min)
-- 1 oz Hersbrucker (10 min)
YEAST
-- White Labs 500 Monastery Yeast

 

[jjw5015]

When you added top up water it may not have mixed together completely.

 

[mredge73]

The only way you measured that high is if your batch is only 3 gallons.
Did you do a partial boil at 3 gallons and take this measurement before adding water?

If not, then your hydrometer is broken.
You can punch those fermentables in any recipe calculator and see that it should be 1.062 at 5 gallons; this isn't a recipe problem.

 

[berndawg84]

Yes, I should've said that I did do a partial boil at 3 gallons, but I did add enough water for 5 gallons, which is what went into the fermenter. The only possible thing as jjw said is that I didn't mix all of the top off water properly. When I poured all the wort into the fermenter, I saved the last little bit to measure my OG. Could be this was just not mixed properly!

I will test my hydrometer's calibration with distilled water and see. If it's not at 1.000 then I know it's busted.. I am a newbie but this high OG was bizarre more than anything.

 

[PADave]

Very common issue when adding top up water with extract, not mixing. If you got the correct volume of water, and use the correct amounts of extract, then there is really no way to miss the OG. No reason to even check it.

 

[berndawg84]

OK gotcha. So I guess it's either the water wasn't mixed, or my hydrometer is broken? I can rule out the Hydrometer issue easily with a calibration test...the weird thing about the water mixing issue is that I did pour the wort back and forth between my kettle and the fermenter several times to help aerate it, and it was the full 5 gallons..so the water should've gotten mixed well with the aeration. I guess we'll see in the end, but seems like the beer will turn out the same, just my reading is way off.