Low OG on pilsner

[Kelly13A]

brewed my first pilsner today. I poured the cooled wort into my fermenter and added just a bit more water to bring it up to 5 gallons, turns out I added it just a bit past 5 gallons. I took a gravity reading at 62 degrees F before adding the yeast starter, the OG reading was 1.02, which is way below what the recipe recommends of 1.047. My first thoughts are I added too much water, and that I didn't add all the liquid from the brew pot because the bottom was pretty sludgy. Also I had two gallons of water then added the pot contents, then one more gallon of water, but I didn't stir or shake it up at all.

What would ya'll recommend, should I try to raise the OG? Should I boil some water and add sugar to bring it up? Is it possible I just suck at taking an OG reading and it may be okay? I don't need a really high alcohol content pilsner but I also don't want it so low that I'm drinking 5 glasses before realizing it!

Either way, the 1 liter of yeast is now added and it'll ferment in the garage for a few weeks hovering between 50-63 degrees before I go to secondary in a fridge between 35-40.

 

[waldoar15]

Is this an extract brew?

If so, the wort needs to be *very* well mixed after adding water if you want to take a gravity reading.

 

[RM-MN]

Also I had two gallons of water then added the pot contents, then one more gallon of water, but I didn't stir or shake it up at all.

I think there is your problem. It is difficult to get proper mixing with lots of stirring and people report low OG readings because of that.

 

[Kelly13A]

Hmm, I hope you both are right. I've only recently starting taking gravity readings and both times it has been very low for OG, but they have both been extract brews and not shaken or stirred before, and the beer didn't turn out bad, but I can't say I've every made an exceptionally strong alcoholic content beer. I guess it's something I'm going to keep better track of and look more closely at.

 

[RM-MN]

When you make an extract beer the amount of sugars (your OG) is already set so the hydrometer reading that is off is because of incomplete mixing. It is really difficult to mix the dense extract with top off water so I will often suggest that people just accept the kit or recipe's expected OG as being accurate.4