High OG

[Shoppy]

Hi All,

I Just finished my fourth brew and have a really high OG. I brewed an American Amber and tried doing the late addition DME for the first time.

Here is the outline for the malt bill:

Steeped 1lbs Carmel 40L for 30min
3 lbs Amber DME for the full boil
3 lbs Light late addition 10 Min
Whirlfloc 10 min

It seemed to not have a great Hot Break (using an immersion chiller) and it kept clogging the filter. When I took my OG it was at 1.061. Beersmith calculated 1.053. Is this because of the late addition of the DME? Is this normal? Anybody think of anything I should be concerned about?

Thanks

 

[Kaz]

What about boil volumes? Was this a full boil or a partial boil with a top off at the end? What was the final wort volume when you took the S.G.? At what temp did you take the gravity reading, and did you temp correct it if needed?

 

[MalFet]

If your recipe was calculated properly and if you used the right amount of water, there's really no way you missed your expected OG. Did you top up your wort with water? If so, the most likely explanation is that it hadn't fully integrated when you took the gravity reading.

 

[Smokeater233]

If he used top off water, any poor "integration" would likely result in a lower OG than a higher one as water is less dense than wort and most end up catching too much water when using their thiefs and not enough of the combined wort/water mixture.

Hot break occurs in the pot at the start of the boil - so in this case you are referring to cold break, but I don't think that's what is at issue here.

What was the volume of the wort you made? Is it possible your BeerSmith expected you to end up with 5.5 gallons (for example) and you only made 4.5 or 5 gallons? Or is it possible you did use top up water but tested your OG BEFORE adding the top up water?

 

[MalFet]

If he used top off water, any poor "integration" would likely result in a lower OG than a higher one as water is less dense than wort and most end up catching too much water when using their thiefs and not enough of the combined wort/water mixture.

There are perhaps 80 million bajillion threads on here that demonstrate it can go both ways. If it's possible to catch too much water, it's also possible to catch too much not-water. "And" what's with "the quotes" around "integration"?

 

[Smokeater233]

MalFet - I know you also saw the words "likely" and "most", i.e. not absolute.

As for the quotes around "integration", I thought it was an odd choice of words given that what we're talking about here is a blending of two liquids to make a compound mixture, versus the civil rights act of 1964...

Just having a little fun with ya...

 

[Shoppy]

Sorry about the Hot/Cold break mix up. I did mean Cold break. The boil volume was 3.25 Gal and I did top off to the 5 gal mark before taking the reading. I was at 70 deg F. I'm not sure of the ending wort volume but the correction for temp should have been approx .0013 not enough to throw off the reading that much. I agree there should be no way the reading can be this high but I'm at a loss for what I'm missing.

 

[MalFet]

Sorry about the Hot/Cold break mix up. I did mean Cold break. The boil volume was 3.25 Gal and I did top off to the 5 gal mark before taking the reading. I was at 70 deg F. I'm not sure of the ending wort volume but the correction for temp should have been approx .0013 not enough to throw off the reading that much. I agree there should be no way the reading can be this high but I'm at a loss for what I'm missing.

Take another gravity reading now. I'll bet you dollars to donuts it has equalized out.

 

[strangerinthealps]

I had a similar situation Friday night. Stock pot held about 3.25 gallons. I split 10 lbs of Pale Extract, doing the last 5 lbs at 45 minutes in. Finished off with extra water. My OG came in at 1.080 instead of the expected 1.073.

 

[Shoppy]

Take another gravity reading now. I'll bet you dollars to donuts it has equalized out.

I'm a little hesitant to open up the bucket so I think I'm going to wait until secondary, after all not much I can change right now. Now after playing with some numbers in Beersmith I'm starting to second guess if I filled to a full 5 gal in the fermenter. (Wish I used a carboy instead of a bucket now)

Thanks for the help

 

[Shoppy]

I had a similar situation Friday night. Stock pot held about 3.25 gallons. I split 10 lbs of Pale Extract, doing the last 5 lbs at 45 minutes in. Finished off with extra water. My OG came in at 1.080 instead of the expected 1.073.

Nice to see I'm not alone.