Initial brew...gravity question.

[hefe811]

Had my first brew day and just finished up. Of course this was full of lessons... One of which was I purchased a glass carboy 6 gal...as it was advertised. The lady at the local brew shop said she thought it was 6.5 gal. I stupidly didn't measure and mark my carboy before its use.

Brew day went well. I grabbed a recipe off of byo.com for a Mac and Jack African Amber clone. The wort looked to be kind of low. It was originally 3 gal of water plus the 6.6 lbs of extract. It barely met halfway in the carboy. I topped off the 5.5 and it seemed to barely be at 70-75% of the carboy. My buddy tells me the water I added was definitely at 5.5 gal. I still think its low but went with it. The Orig Grav was supposed to be 1.060. It measured at 1.021 right away. After cleaning up, I went back and its steady at 1.028.

How long should I wait to log the OG. What would cause the OG to be .04 or .03 low? How much will it affect my final abv?

It smells delicious. The wait will be a major test of my patience. Anyone have any words of wisdom?

Thanks,
Hefe

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[GammaRay4130]

I had the same thing happen on my first couple extract brews, the wort and top up water aren't mixed all the way yet so depending on whats in the sample it will be high or low depending on whether its mainly top up water or concentrated wort. If your total volume and amount of extract match your recipe you should be in the ballpark.

 

[mrkrausen]

Someone else may come in with a definitive answer, but if I had to guess I'd say it has to do with the temperature of the sample that you took the reading from. Hydrometers are calibrated to test at 60 degrees F. Hope that helps.

 

[hefe811]

So cool the sample to 60
degrees and then measure?

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[F_R_O_G]

that far off has to be a reading error or you didn't mix it enough.

mix it better and retest.

btw did you make sure the Hydrometer is calibrated? (at 1.000 in plain water) I have one that's .03 off

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

So cool the sample to 60
degrees and then measure?

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Yes but double check your hydrometer some are calibrated to 65F as well. It should say somewhere on the paper slip inside the glass what the calibration temp was. Even still I doubt temperature alone threw off you reading by that much.

But that, coupled with not properly mixed extract. Maybe. Again as stated before as long as you used the ingredients called for in the recipe and used the proper amount of measured water your OG should be pretty much what the stated recipe calls for. With extract recipes.


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[Potamus]

There is no way temperature could account for that huge a difference. It is very difficult to fully mix wort in a carboy if you are using extract. The sugars all go to the bottom, so the OG is almost always low if you are mixing by hand. I take my mash paddle and stick the (sanitized) handle in to give it a good stir before taking an OG reading. That usually gets me pretty close to target OG.

At this point, I would just sit back and let the yeast do its thing. You won't get an accurate ABV measurement, but that's better than risking an infection by taking repeated gravity readings.

 

[hefe811]

I still had sanitizer and got another reading before the yeast really took off. Water tested at 1.000, the wort is reading 1.027. The hydrometer is calibrated at 60. The temp is sitting at 68.
Can someone explain that chart? Brix and SG? I know specific gravity but how does that correct og? .4 seems like a lot...

 

[Potamus]

You use brix for a refractometer. When using a hydrometer, use the SG correction, which is about .001.