Confused about gravity reading

[exovis]

Hey everyone,

I did my first extract brew last tuesday (have only done kits before), and my gravity reading surprised me a bit.

I did this recipe: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/citra-black-ipa, but couldn't find any Briess vendors so I substituted with CaraMunich III and Carafa Special III respectively. I also misread the recipe before shopping to I bought 3 Kg (just over 6lbs) of Amber spray malt (again substituting, my HBS's don't offer alot of options for extract brewers). According to BrewSmith the potential of Amber DME is roughly the same as Light DME, so I opted to simply use all the DME and omit the dextrose since the recipe called for LME.

What I'm confused about is the OG reading was so high that my hydrometer couldn't measure it. The "bulb" of the hydrometer just barely went into the surface of the wort. Seeing as the expected OG is 1.062 WITH the dextrose I don't understand why it is so high, can someone perhaps help me understand ?

 

[IvanTheTerribrew]

What was the temp of the wort and was it free from hop debris? Both of those can cause your gravity to rise.


- ISM NRP

 

[MichaelBrock]

There are only so may things that can go wrong with an extract recipe. I checked it and the 1.062 number looks right. So it pretty much has to be a measurment issue. You either added way too much of the ingredients or way too little water.

 

[exovis]

The temp was around 20°, but it was definitely not free of hop debris. I was searching around for answers before making this thread though and came to the conclusion that hops did not affect gravity. This is false then ?

 

[ram5ey]

Did you measure before adding top up water? That would do it right there...

 

[frazier]

Hop debris won't affect the reading, unless we're talking about the hydrometer coming to rest on a layer of sludge. Floaties won't change the reading.

That said - it sounds like your wort was not mixed fully, and your sample was mostly extract. Did you do a full boil? Check the reading after the boil? It really sounds like operator error, you will have to help us solve this one.

Cheers,

 

[unionrdr]

Anything not dissolved in the wort will not effect gravity, so no worries there. The top off water might not have been mixed well with the wort.

 

[exovis]

Culprit found, I think, me . After getting some more light in there I noticed this weird layering. I'm guessing that it's not mixed properly. After pouring in the wort I siphoned cold water into the fermenter (the end of the tube was at the bottom) and I assumed this was enough to mix everything properly, guess I was wrong, though it did look pretty evenly mixed at the time.

So, now I'm wondering what to do. Is it safe to just sanitize my giant spoon and give the wort a gentle stir to mix everything up ? There is a layer of hops on the surface (from dry-hopping) but I guess if I'm stirring in the first place it wouldn't hurt to stir that in with the rest.

 

[metanoia]

Wait, so you aerated before adding the top off water?

 

[exovis]

Well, I never made a conscious effort to aerate at least (that's something to keep in mind for my next brew day). When the boil was done, I poured the wort from the pot into the fermenter and then siphoned in the top off water. The only alternative I had available was to fill a vessel multiple times and pour it in. The siphon seemed more convenient.