Can I add extra sugar to fermenter to increase gravity?

[Gagunga]

I brewed my 2nd ever batch of beer today. It is the begian whitbier from midwest. My og seemed drastically low at 1.034. Should be starting at 1.046. I did a 2.5 gallon boil and topped it off to 5 gallons.

I have it fermenting in a carboy right now. Been fermenting about 12 hours
Can I add some corn sugar to the carboy to help boost my gravity? I just don't want to end up with very low alcohol percentage. Thanks for the help

 

[flars]

It is very likely that the low SG is in error. It is difficult to completely mix the high gravity wort from the boil kettle with the top off water even with good aeration. The OG will be as the recipe states if you have used all the fermentables included with the kit.

You can enter the ingredients into this recipe builder. Should give you close to the recipe OG. There may be a minor difference. Depends upon the percentage of fermentability used by the recipe builder for the LME and DME and the percentage used by the Brewers Friend calculator.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator

 

[Gagunga]

Thanks for the reply and helpful link! I think you're on to something. I added the 2.5 gallon of wort directly to the carboy then topped to 5 gallons with spring water. I didn't even think to mix it. What a noob...

 

[brandonlovesbeer]

Yes you can.

 

[kh54s10]

It is more than likely a mixing issue. With extract kits, if you end up with the right volume your OG will be very close to what was predicted.

In answer to the question you can add sugars to the fermenter but you will be thinning out the beer. It is not usually a good idea.

 

[moose5180]

yep did the same thing a few times

 

[SlitheryDee]

You can, but it would likely be better for your beer if you used more extract. As mentioned above, you're almost certainly seeing a result of incomplete mixing though, especially considering how you topped the fermenter up without stirring.