If I got an innacurate OG

[ddwill]

Made a Barley Wine, but OG read at 1.060 which is very low for that type of "beer?" Due to the fact that it was my first all grain, and I slipped up acouple of times in the sparging process, I do not know if that was accurate or not. I may not have pulled out enough sugar.

Question: Is there any way short of a lab analysis of determining the actual alc. content of the finished product (I am racking to the secondary tonight)?

I suppose I could always use the "how drunk do I get test"?

 

[DrinksWellWithOthers]

(OG - FG) x 131 = ABV %

Edit: Read your thread title again and realized calculating ABV wasn't your question.. To the best of my knowledge there isn't any way to get an accurate OG reading after your beer is fermented. I don't even know if its possible to get inaccurate readings if you're doing a full boil.

 

[McKBrew]

Did you do a full boil or add top off water. (Typically full boil for AG). If your reading was 1.060 then that's what it was. A barleywine is a difficult beer for a first AG. Most higher gravity AG beers have lower efficiencies associated with them. You are probably going to end up with a nice IPA instead. Enjoy.

 

[BarleyWater]

I would guess that 1.060 may be correct, in which case you will be able to know exactly how much alcohol you get.

Was the measurement pre-boil by chance, that would give you a higher OG into the fermentor?

 

[david_42]

If you have a good digital scale, measure out 100.0 grams of brew. Put the brew in a metal container in a water bath (any saucepan will do) at 175F for 30 minutes. Reweigh. The difference is your ABW. ABW*1.25=ABV. You can back-calculate the OG from there.

Quite possibly you had low efficiency in the sparge. Large grain bills are harder to sparge well.

 

[Kaiser]

Another way of doing is to measure a precise amount of the beer, boil it for a little while, let it cool and top off with water until the initial volume is reached again. This removes the alcohol When you now measure its gravity you will get the real extract/gravity of the beer. With that and the apparent extract/gravity (which you get w/o boiling it) you can determine the OG of the beer. I'm not sure how precise you have to be to make sure that the OG comes out fairly accurate.

Kai

 

[ddwill]

wow, thanks for the responses, I do not have a scale, but I will try boiling and adding water. To the question about topping off with water, yes I did, so I think that may be why the OG was low. On the other hand, I was definately having a lot of difficulty getting all of the grain to soak properly.

Thanks all

 

[Kaiser]

See the section attenuation here: Attenuation and related formulae

OE = (RE - 0.8192 AE) / 0.1808

OE - original extract in Plato/Bailling/Brix
RE - real extract in Plao/Bailling/Brix
AE - Apparent extract in Plato/Bailling/Brix

I never tried it myself though.

Kai

 

[BarleyWater]

To the question about topping off with water, yes I did, so I think that may be why the OG was low.

You may not have stirred well enough before checking the gravity. The sugar heavy wort will sink, while the top-off water won't, giving you falsely low OG readings.

 

[Hagen]

Another variable is temperature. Did you cool the wort before taking a gravity reading?

 

[UncleJohnnys]

Can someone tell me what difference in your OG/FG would there be if you take it at 72* rather than 60*?