Gravity increase?!

[thedirtystayout]

Hello,

I'm new on the forum and still new at homebrewing. I'm on my 3rd batch and its acting strange and was wondering if anyone could give me some advice.

The first beer was fantastic and the second one is going along well.

Last saturday, my gf and brewed a Dunkel Weiss. This one used liquid yeast rather than dry yeast. Two days after brewing, I hadnt noticed and activity on the air lock. I know thats not necessarily an indication of fermentation, but got nervous and called my HB supply store. They said let it sit another day or two and then take a hydrometer reading.

This morning I checked it. It was a bit foamy on top, which Im wondering if its infected? I'll take a picture later. The more troubling thing is that my OG was 1.052 and when I checked today, it read 1.060. It seems weird that it would increase. The wort seemed like it was active? I've scoured google and havent found anything helpful yet.

Is this normal for liquid yeast? Is the dunkel done for? Is there anything that can be done to get it to where it should be? Thanks in advance.

 

[Revvy]

It's impossible for that to happen. What really happened was that you OG was actually higher than your initial gravity reading indicated.

It's a pretty common issue for ANYONE topping off with water in the fermenter (and that includes partial mashes, extract or all grain revcipes) to have an error in reading the OG...In fact, it is actually nearly impossible to mix the wort and the top off water in a way to get an accurate OG reading...

Brewers get a low reading if they get more of the top off water than the wort, conversely they get a higher number if they grabbed more of the extract than the top off water in their sample.

When I am doing an extract with grain recipe I make sure to stir for a minimum of 5 minutes (whipping up a froth to aerate as well) before I draw a grav sample and pitch my yeast....It really is an effort to integrate the wort with the top off water...This is a fairly common new brewer issue we get on here...unless you under or over topped off or the final volume for the kit was 5 gallons and you topped off to 5.5, then the issue, sorry to say, is "operator error"

More than likely your true OG is really what it's supposed to be. And it mixed itself fine during fermentation, and your gravity DROPPED to 1.060.

 

[sudbuster]

+1 Revvy, especially the revcipes part.

 

[thedirtystayout]

Thanks for your help, Revvy! Yes, I topped off with water. I was slightly above 5 gallons but not substantially.

I have a carboy, should I transfer to secondary and see if the gravity decreases or just let it sit in primary for another week and then bottle it?

 

[Pappers_]

Just leave it. Seriously, put the lid back on and walk away. Don't even think about it for another two weeks. Worse case scenario, something is really wrong with it and you dump it. Much much much much much more likely scenario - you'll open the lid in two weeks and be greeted with beautiful, delicious beer.

Cheers!

 

[Wolfy]

One of the most common reasons (that has not been mentioned yet) for inaccurate OG readings is due to the gravity changing as temperature changes. If you did not take the OG reading at the correct temperature it would most likely be inaccurate.