So I brewed my 6th batch this weekend (Hophead IPA kit from beer-wine.com, my lhbs). It was a pretty basic extract kit (see recipe below). I did make a few changes:
I added some rice solids to up the ABV a bit
I also tossed the priming sugar into the boil (I force carb in the keg so the priming sugar packet in the kit would go to waste otherwise)
I got a new 9 gallon pot so this was my first full boil
Lastly, I tried using some malto Dexterine for the first time
Based on all this, beersmith gave me an estimated OG of 1.060, but my actual OG came in at 1.072. I've missed my OG before by a couple of points, but this is the largerest miss I've had. I'm not very concerned about the result; a hoppy IPA that might put me on my a$$ is not a bad thing, but I am interested to know why I got the result I did. Two things I suspect could have caused the higher OG:
I entered the ingredents in beersmith wrong. The closest thing to rice solids was flaked rice. Not sure this makes a diffrence, but I don' know.
The crush of the grains was very fine. I think this might be the issue. I had the lhbs crush the grains for me and it was much finer (the husks were completey crushed and a lot of flour in the bottom of the bag). My theory is that the fine crush gave me much higher efficiency.
The recipe called for a 20 min steep, but I went for ~25 min. I can't imagive the extra 5 min would cause such a spike in OG, but maybe it did.
Can anyone help me confirm the cause?
Amount Item Type % or IBU
7.00 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 73.30 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 10.47 %
0.50 lb Carafoam (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.24 %
0.50 lb Rice, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 5.24 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 2.62 %
1.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 59.6 IBU
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (30 min) Hops 15.3 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (30 min) Hops 6.5 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 1.7 IBU
0.28 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
0.55 oz Burton Water Salts (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
4.00 oz Malto-Dextrine (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
0.30 lb Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 3.14 %
1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [Starter 1892 ml] Yeast-Ale
I added some rice solids to up the ABV a bit
I also tossed the priming sugar into the boil (I force carb in the keg so the priming sugar packet in the kit would go to waste otherwise)
I got a new 9 gallon pot so this was my first full boil
Lastly, I tried using some malto Dexterine for the first time
Based on all this, beersmith gave me an estimated OG of 1.060, but my actual OG came in at 1.072. I've missed my OG before by a couple of points, but this is the largerest miss I've had. I'm not very concerned about the result; a hoppy IPA that might put me on my a$$ is not a bad thing, but I am interested to know why I got the result I did. Two things I suspect could have caused the higher OG:
I entered the ingredents in beersmith wrong. The closest thing to rice solids was flaked rice. Not sure this makes a diffrence, but I don' know.
The crush of the grains was very fine. I think this might be the issue. I had the lhbs crush the grains for me and it was much finer (the husks were completey crushed and a lot of flour in the bottom of the bag). My theory is that the fine crush gave me much higher efficiency.
The recipe called for a 20 min steep, but I went for ~25 min. I can't imagive the extra 5 min would cause such a spike in OG, but maybe it did.
Can anyone help me confirm the cause?
Amount Item Type % or IBU
7.00 lb Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 73.30 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 10.47 %
0.50 lb Carafoam (2.0 SRM) Grain 5.24 %
0.50 lb Rice, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 5.24 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 2.62 %
1.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (60 min) Hops 59.6 IBU
0.50 oz Chinook [13.00 %] (30 min) Hops 15.3 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (30 min) Hops 6.5 IBU
0.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (5 min) Hops 1.7 IBU
0.28 tsp Irish Moss (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
0.55 oz Burton Water Salts (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
4.00 oz Malto-Dextrine (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
0.30 lb Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (1.0 SRM) Sugar 3.14 %
1 Pkgs California Ale (White Labs #WLP001) [Starter 1892 ml] Yeast-Ale
