Missed my OG!

[sjuguy]

I brewed a Midwest Ferocious (Furious IPA clone) kit on Saturday, and long story short I missed my OG by 12 points (1056 instead of 1068). I did a full boil and had a problem with the boil-off rate... Anyway, what are the potential effects on the beer going to be? The abv should be lower than expected, but how about the hop/malt balance? I'm basically expecting a highly hopped pale ale to be the result. Hopefully it's not too bitter. I did reduce the bittering hops from 1 oz to .8 oz (per beersmith), to account for a full boil and later extract additions. Hopefully that will help.

I still have to dry hop once fermentation is done. Question is, should I cut back on the time or the quantity due to the lower gravity level? Kit calls for 3oz for 7-10 days if I remember correctly.

Thoughts?

Thanks
Chris

 

[Elweydoloco]

Wellllllll.....

The bad thing is, you don't really know what your FG is going to be. I brewed an AHS blue moon clone and missed the OG by 8 points but ended the FG 9 points lower so I ended up with the same alcohol content essentially.

That being said my opinion would be if you have time to wait before kegging bottling whatever and are OK with leaving it in the primary for a month or longer, I'd ust what the recipe calls for.

 

[iron_city_ap]

Sounds like you ruined the entire batch. Fortunately for you I have a beer disposal facility. Ship it to me at once.

Your hop/malt balance will be off, but you can't do anything about that now. Its not a huge deal though. When you dry hop you only effect the aeromatics, not the bitterness. Since your gravity is a little low, you could add slightly less hops when you dry hop, but I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[imrook]

You are going to end up with a beer that is shifted more to the bitter end of the spectrum than the recipe was designed for. That doesn't mean it will be a bad beer. Since you're brewing an IPA, I assume you like bitter/hoppy beers. You'll like this just fine then. Once, early in my brewing career, I missed my O.G. by a lot on a dry stout. I wasn't experienced enough at the time to adjust the recipe on-the-fly, so just stuck to the recipe for hop additions. I ended up with a hoppy amber instead of a balanced stout. I got a number of compliments on that beer anyway. You'll be fine.

 

[phillyhomebrew]

Your OG may be a little better than what you think. Did you test your wort at the calibrated 59F temperature? If you tested with hot wort, you could be off by about 6 points or so. Check with beersmith. There is a hydrometer temperature calculator iirc.

Either way, it's gonna be good beer so don't fret.

 

[sjuguy]

Thanks for the replies.

Took the reading with a hydrometer, so it should be pretty close.

Should end up being OK, fermenting like crazy right now at a nice temp controlled 66 degrees!