Misread water addition

[WillieBananas]

Doh, I misread my water additions (it was late). Went with 10gal instead of the calculated 9.17. So the outcome was that I missed my estimated OG of 1.055. The measured OG was 1.044. Big deal? Not concerned about the ABV being too low. More concerned about the bitterness being out of whack. Thoughts?

 

[flars]

A longer boil could have been done to reduce the volume before your first hop addition. Use some DME to bring the OG up to keep the bitterness level the same if you think it may be a problem.

 

[wilserbrewer]

So I’m guessing you were over volume resulting in lower OG?

Regardless of what your software may tell you, always a good idea to monitor your volumes as you proceed which will provide you opportunities to make corrective actions if required. I typically don’t really time my boil, but boil to a specific volume while timing my late hop additions to flame out rather than beginning of the boil. I may also vary boil intensity to give me an edge toward hitting accurate volumes. Most important volume is post boil, so all the calculations are for naught if you miss that

Whether the total boil time is 50
Minutes or 70, doesn’t really matter in my observations, more important to hit other parameters.

 

[WillieBananas]

So I’m guessing you were over volume resulting in lower OG?

Regardless of what your software may tell you, always a good idea to monitor your volumes as you proceed which will provide you opportunities to make corrective actions if required. I typically don’t really time my boil, but boil to a specific volume while timing my late hop additions to flame out rather than beginning of the boil. I may also vary boil intensity to give me an edge toward hitting accurate volumes. Most important volume is post boil, so all the calculations are for naught if you miss that

Whether the total boil time is 50
Minutes or 70, doesn’t really matter in my observations, more important to hit other parameters.

So my only question about your method is , "How do you do you bittering addition if you are not timing the boil? ?" I am intrigued.

 

[wilserbrewer]

So my only question about your method is , "How do you do you bittering addition if you are not timing the boil? ?" I am intrigued.

Add the bittering addition once boiling. Bittering or first hop addition is typically considered close to total extraction, Boiling hops for 50 or 70 minutes makes very little difference to the bitterness achieved.

It doesn’t make much if any difference....rdwhahb with regard to total boil time of the bittering hops.

Much more important to hit post boil volume than boiling your bittering addition plus minus 10 minutes imo.

No need to be rigid with total timing on your bittering hops....finishing hops absolutely.