First Brew - How'd I do?

[bigdubz]

Hey All, I did my first brew at home (one previous brew-on-premises at LHBS) and I think I did well and had a couple of questions.

The brew is a Fat Tire Amber Ale clone, my LHBS was kind enough to provide the recipe and help me get it together. It was an extract brew with specialty grains steeped for 40 minutes at 160. The boil was 90 minutes.

So question, the recipe stated a target OG of 1.058, I got 1.052. I let the grain bag drain into a pot for a while and squeezed a bit. I start with 7.5 gallons to account for the lost water to the grains and the longer boil. I ended the boil with 5.5 gallons.

How big a deal is .006 points of SG? What can I learn from this brew for next time?

Thanks very much, wouldn't be brewing and enjoying it so much without HBT.com

 

[DrummerBoySeth]

.006 is not a very big deal at all. It is almost impossible to get the "wrong" SG with an extract kit, because you are not mashing grains to convert sugars. Depending on what steeping grains you used, and your steeping technique, it is possible to raise or lower the SG by about .002 to as much as .006 or so, but I do not think that this is what happened.

You said that you finished with 5.5 gallons of wort after the boil. I suspect that this is where the "missing" gravity points went. MOST extract kits call for fermenting 5 gallons. The extra 1/2 gallon probably SLIGHTLY diluted the wort, resulting in the lower gravity reading.

This will not affect your finished beer very much at all. I suspect you will not be able to tell the difference. The upside is that you will get about 5 more bottles due to that extra 1/2 gallon of beer in the batch!

 

[bigdubz]

That's what I was hoping to hear. Thanks very much!

 

[Waynep005]

I like to end up with 5.5 galons after my boil that way when I bottle I have 5 gallons after what is lost in the trub. Sounds like you had a good first brew day .The final verdict is stil a few weeks away however.