easy question about increasing specific gravity with DME

[ekjohns]

I brewed the blondshell blonde all grain today and had a HORRIBLE! efficiency. My target was 1.046 and I got 1.030. I would like to bring it up to the target SG using some light DME. Right now I have 5.5 gal and would like to limit the amount of water put in so I would like to only add 1/2 gal of water to give me a final volume of 6 gal. I am not very good with specific gravity could someone please tell me how much LDME I need to add to get the gravity to 1.046?

my calculations give me 2.13lbs?
( # lbs DME x 45 points) / 6 gallons = 16

Do you agree?

 

[FlyGuy]

The math isn't too bad (and I am sure someone can correct me if I make a mistake here).

Your final volume will be 5.5 + 0.5 = 6 gal, and you are shooting for 1.046 gravity points. So, the total extract points will be 46 x 6 = 276.

Your brew is already contributing 5.5 gals @ 1.030, so that is 30 x 5.5 = 165.

You need to make up 276 - 165 = 111 points.

DME yields about 41 points per pound per gallon, so 111/41 = 2.7 lbs.

That's a lot to dissolve in a half gallon of water, but heating it should help a bit.

 

[ekjohns]

i plan to do a small 30 min boil just to kill some bac. and help dissolve and all that good stuff. I will add 2.5 lbs of Light DME just to make it easy

 

[Yooper]

i plan to do a small 30 min boil just to kill some bac. and help dissolve and all that good stuff

You definitely don't have to do a 30 minute boil. You don't have to boil at all, actually, but a couple of minutes at boiling will definitely sanitize it. When I make starters, or use DME in other ways, I usually boil for only about 5 minutes or less. Then, cool it down and use it.

 

[ekjohns]

sounds good im all for easy! thanks everyone

 

[ekjohns]

Added 2.5 lbs of LDME yesterday. I was able to dissolve it in boiling water and also did a 20 min boil to get a nice cold break and cause I am anal about bacteria. for those that might come along this thread with the same question make sure you stir non-stop while boiling if you choose to as 2.5 lbs of dme will expand the 1/2 gal of water to 2 gal during the boil so plan on using a good size pot that will hold over 4 times the original volume of water. Also make sure that you get it cooled down to rec. temp of the yeast as this will get poored right ontop of the yeast cake and you dont want to hit the yeast with hot water! The color of the beer did get a little darker so my bombshell blonde ale is now a bombshell sandy blonde ale but hopefully it will taste great