ABV and Gravities

[curious_monkey]

Hey everyone,

I made my first solo batch last night (only made one other ones with friends) and I realized I didn't take the original gravity. It will have been sitting for 12-14 hours by the time I'll be able to get back to it with the yeast already pitched. Is it too late to get an accurate OG reading or is it ok or should I not even worry about it. The instructions for the partial grain kit I got (Northern Brewer Smashed Pumpkin) doesn't even mention taking a reading.

Thanks in advance.

 

[AndyRN]

I have forgotten to do it in the past. Personally I wouldn't worry about it, if it were an all grain batch, maybe I would.

 

[Brewtah]

What grains did you steep or mash? If your recipie was primarily DME or LME, then your OG is going to be pretty close to the projected gravity. If you added the proper amount water don't worry about it.

 

[dkevinb]

Relax, don't worry, etc. According to the recipe your OG was undoubtedly very close to 1.054. IME extract/steeping grain recipes very, very rarely miss their OG. If you used the US-05 yeast your FG will be right around 1.015, giving you an ABV of 5 - 5.2%.

It's always a VERY good idea to take the FG before packaging just to be sure fermentation is complete, though. You don't want any bottle bombs.

 

[chickypad]

They don't have that many partial mash kits, and that doesn't appear to be one of them. I think you were steeping with extract, so as mentioned above if your volume was correct you can just use the kit's stated OG.

 

[curious_monkey]

They don't have that many partial mash kits, and that doesn't appear to be one of them. I think you were steeping with extract, so as mentioned above if your volume was correct you can just use the kit's stated OG.

I may have misspoken, the kit contained malt and grains and 1.5 lbs of amber LME. Per the instructions I added the extra pumpkin spice, 6-row malts and fresh pumpkin.

So my take away is don't sweat it and use their OG, but make sure to take a reading before bottling. Gotcha! Thanks for everything.

Sidenote: adding homemade vanilla extract about 1 week before bottling yea or nay?

 

[Zolon]

I may have misspoken, the kit contained malt and grains and 1.5 lbs of amber LME. Per the instructions I added the extra pumpkin spice, 6-row malts and fresh pumpkin.

So my take away is don't sweat it and use their OG, but make sure to take a reading before bottling. Gotcha! Thanks for everything.

Sidenote: adding homemade vanilla extract about 1 week before bottling yea or nay?

Not sure on the vanilla, still learning..

On the gravity, 2 days before you WANT to bottle, take a reading. On the day of bottle, take another reading. If they match, bottle. If they don't, you run a risk of things becoming interesting if you still bottle.

I have learned in just my two batches, that yeast doesn't care what the paper says.