Beersmith said OG: 1.049, Actual was 1.055

[syd138]

5.0 lb Wheat DME
0.50 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 20L
0.20 lb Aromatic Malt
0.25 lb Chocolate Malt
0.75 oz Hallertauer
Safbrew WB-06 (Wheat Beer Yeast)

The OG for this was supposed to be 1.049.. when I took a reading right before I pitched, it said about 1.055-1.056

Why would there be such a difference? I followed the recipe exactly.

 

[The Pol]

Was it a partial boil? If you ended up with the correct final volume your OG is as specified in the software. What happens, at least once a day here, is that it is VERY hard to thoroughly mix the sugars if you use top off water. So, your OG reading is incorrect. You can test your hydrometer in distilled water to make sure it is correct. Did you take the sample at the correct temp as well?

My guess is that it is exactly right, but your reading is wrong because you did a partial boil and used top off water.

 

[Brew-Happy]

The issue might be the accuracy of your volume measurements. If Beersmith has it's calculations for 5gals and you topped off to less than 5gals (say 4.8gals) you will have a higher OG. Use a 1qt container and test your container mark for 5gals.

This or the above suggestion of not mixing thoroughly would do that.

PS I am not familiar with Beersmith as I use Qbrew. In Qbrew you have to set the type of grain usage: steeped or mashed. If Beersmith is calculating for one and you did the other, that could account for some OG inaccuracy.

 

[syd138]

Yeah, I did do a partial mash.. so I dumped about 2 gallons of water into the carboy.. I was pretty close to 5 gallons.


But I shook it up pretty well, that should have mixed all the water in there.

I can see it being off by 0.002 or something.. but not by 0.006

 

[The Pol]

Yeah, I did do a partial mash.. so I dumped about 2 gallons of water into the carboy.. I was pretty close to 5 gallons.


But I shook it up pretty well, that should have mixed all the water in there.

I can see it being off by 0.002 or something.. but not by 0.006

Shaking it, no matter howmuch you do it... isnt enough, from all of the posts here about this same topic. When I say that there is one per day here, I mean that there are about two or more post EXACTLY like this every day.

When doing extract, measuring the OG is of little significance, because if you are topping off, your measurement probably isnt right anyway. Also, it is mixing sugar and water that is all... no eff. issues. So, if you use the right ammount of sugar and the right ammount of water, the OG is dead on, every time. Just worry about he FG so that you dont make bombs.

It was mixed well, but partial boils are almost never mixed good enough.