Problem with hydrometer reading........

[madkap_78]

Ok so I brewed my first batch of beer this morning. Everything went fine. I cooled the wort down to just under 80 degrees and poured it into my primary. I added about 2 gallons of water to bring it up to 5 gallons. I syphoned some off into a test jar and took a hydrometer reading it read only 1.041. The recipe that Im making says the starting gravity should be around 1.047. I measured the grain and lme out and followed the recipe to the letter. Is there something Im doing wrong?

 

[inhousebrew]

Did you aerate your wort? Basically shaking it up to add oxygen back to it for the yeast during reproduction but it also serves to mix up your wort with the water you added. Just shake the hell out of it for a minute or two, splash it around good and then take a sample. Odds are you got more water than wort. If that's not it you probably wound up with too much by either adding too much water or boiling off too much wort which diluted your end product. Either way, your not off by that much.

 

[BadBeagleBrew]

Check your hydrometer in water to see where it zeroes at, double check the temp of the sample you are measuring at. You may have added a bit to much water who knows, it will still turn out to be great beer.
RDWHAHB

 

[madkap_78]

I dont think I put to much water in. I had a little less than 4 gals of wort when I added it to the primary, I only put in about a gallon and a half of water to bring it to 5 gals. I think i just needed to mix the water in the wort more next time. Thanks.

 

[menerdari]

One other thing, did you compensate the reading for the temp of your sample?
most hydrometers are calibrated at 60 deg. and if your sample was at 80 deg your reading may have been about .003 or so low because of temp.

 

[madkap_78]

I didnt know that. It looks like based on what everyone is saying, that everything is fine. Next time I will bring the wort down as close to 60 degrees as I can get and then make sure to mix the wort in real good with the wort before i take a sample

 

[menerdari]

you don't have to get it to 60 deg, just add a point for every 6 or 7 degs above 60 that your sample is. there are hydrometer temperature compensation calculators online, just google one up.