Low OG from kit beer plus

[bobtheUKbrewer2]

Hello, this morning I made up a coopers beer kit which is 1.7 kg of hopped malt extract. I boosted it with 8 oz crystal malt, 8 oz carapils and 4 oz chocolate malt steeped in near boiling water for 15 minutes then strained. I also added 700 gm of brewing sugar (ie dextrose). Final volume was 40 UK pints, and the OG was 7.6 BRIX - and this seems surprisingly low. I did mix very thoroughly before taking a sample for testing. Any thoughts?

 

[hbtasdfg]

i plugged this into http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator/
and got a gravity of 1.037

assuming 5 US gallons which is i think 5 or 10% different from 40 uk pints
i think you just don't have quite enough fermentables.
i'd just add another .8-1kg of malt extract or whatever it takes to get to 1.045 or 1.050

 

[The_Traveling_Brewer]

Hello, this morning I made up a coopers beer kit which is 1.7 kg of hopped malt extract. I boosted it with 8 oz crystal malt, 8 oz carapils and 4 oz chocolate malt steeped in near boiling water for 15 minutes then strained. I also added 700 gm of brewing sugar (ie dextrose). Final volume was 40 UK pints, and the OG was 7.6 BRIX - and this seems surprisingly low. I did mix very thoroughly before taking a sample for testing. Any thoughts?

What temperature was the wort when you took your gravity reading? If the wort is too warm it will have your readings showing lower then they actually are.

 

[fuelish]

What temperature was the wort when you took your gravity reading? If the wort is too warm it will have your readings showing lower then they actually are.

Indeed.....I'm anal about gravity temps....

 

[bobtheUKbrewer2]

My refractometer has ATC but I did check it - it was 21 deg C

 

[JDGator]

usually with a Coopers kit you add a kilo of DME/Dextrose to reach close to 4.5-5%ABV. to me it looks pretty close. not sure about UK pints though. if that is 6gal you have added too much water. you needed to be down in the 5gal or 20L range for that 5% beer.