Low initial gravity reading

[kem411ocd]

Hello everyone!

My good friend and I just made our first batch of beer. We made a Boston red ale from partial mash. When we took our first hydrometer reading it came out to 1.016. We were expecting it to be a bit heavier, and we're now wondering what this means for our beer. Any help or thoughts would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[rifraf]

Did you use top off water? Can you post your recipe so we can see how much extract you added?

If you used top off water, then odds are your sample had more water then wort in it, and you're probably fine.

 

[Pie_Man]

Welcome to the forum.

Was this a full boil (the full volume of liquid was boiled together), or a partial boil (part of the wort was boiled and then water was added to reach your final gravity?

 

[ztexz]

99% chance that one of these two things happened:

1) If you did a partial boil and then added water to top it off, the two did not mix thoroughly and so your sample was more water than wort;

2) Did you crush the grains prior to mashing? It sounds silly, but more than a few of us have made that mistake on our first brew. If they were crushed, how long and at what temperature did you mash?

 

[kem411ocd]

We ended up starting with a bit more water than the recipe asked for. So our initial boil for the mash and extra sparge started at 4 gallons instead of 3, then we added an extra gallon as we added the extract and hops. After all of this we ended up with around 3 gallons of wart, to which we topped it off to 5 gallons. I don't have the recipe infront of me because im at work (and this was eating at me, so I had to post it). I'll post the details later as I get off work.

 

[rifraf]

Yeah it's probably fine then, and the top off water didn't mix all the way with the wort !