Looking for advice on a recipe/ Original Gravity Question

[dizzle]

Quick background- This is my third batch, which I started Sunday. The first two were kits from my LHBS, and this most recent one was from a book I bought called Extreme Brewing (wish I'd found this place before I spent that money).

The recipe is for an "Imperial Pale Ale", which had a pretty high SG of 1.070, and an estimated ABV around 8%. The recipe called for a boil of 5 gallons, but since I have a smaller brewpot I was only able to boil up 3.5 gallons. I used the LME and the hop additions to the letter. I did not make a yeast starter (although reading the forums for a few days I can tell that was a mistake). The yeast was WLP001.After I got my wort into the carboy, I topped off by adding the additional 1.5 gallons, then I took my gravity reading, which came in at 1.042. I was surprised by how off I was. Should I have taken the gravity reading prior to topping off with water? Might that be why the gravity readings were so different?

The recipe also called for an addition of 1/2 lb. of brown sugar (boiled in water) 2 days after the start of fermentation. I haven't done this yet. Would this affect the gravity? Would I need another reading after the addition?

The fermentation took off about 7.5 hours after I put it in the carboy, and had a nice 1.5 inch of krausen , which has almost dissipated as of this morning.

Thanks, I'd appreciate any thoughts.

 

[Sarrsipius]

hmm. can you post the recipe?

 

[dizzle]

I don't have my book with me but I found this, and it's pretty right on, except the person who posted this on another board cut down a hop addition by 1/2 oz. :

4.5 gal water


8 lbs light malt extract syrup
1 lbs Lovi crystal 60L

1 oz centennial 60 min
1 oz cascade 10 min
.5 oz cascade flame out
1 oz cascade dry hop

1 TSP Irish Moss 20 min.

60 min boil

Wyeast 1056 APA or White Lab WLP001.

He also adds .5 lb of brown sugar w/ 2 cups of water to the primary after 2 days.

 

[Sarrsipius]

8 lbs of LME in 5 gallons of wort should give you between 1.055 and 1.060 SG. Adding the brown sugar gets you a little closer but really only adds about .005 or so to the SG.

As for why you came up short...could be a number of things.
-you may have had an error in your hydrometer reading due to temp of the sample, bubbles on the hydrometer, hydrometer not calibrated (does it read 1.000 in water?).
-maybe there was something wrong with the LME (less likely) or you didn't add 8 lbs.
-your water volume is more than 5 gal

In any case, your beer will likely still be fine, just not exactly what you where shooting for.

As for starters...I brewed for a couple years without them before making the change and there are noticable improvements in my beer with a starter. It's cleaner, fresher tasting (if that makes sense) but these are very small improvements. The bigger the beer though the more benefit there is to using a starter. If your beer really is at 1.042SG then 1056 won't have any problems without a starter. Even at 1.070 you would likely be fine with a smack pack of 1056 (but a starter would be better).

Good luck, let us know how it turns out or if you figure out what went wrong.

 

[dizzle]

I did not calibrate the hydrometer prior. I'll check on that in the future. The temp was 68 degrees when I took the sample.

Thanks for your help. I'm really excited about this batch. This forum is a great source of information. Cheers!

 

[Sarrsipius]

68 deg wouldn't make much of a difference (certainly wouldn't account for the discrepancy you had).

If the hydrometer reads 1.000 in water then it should be fine. When you take a reading give the hydrometer a spin in the wort to shake off any bubbles. If there are a lot of bubbles on it you can have a significant error.