My First Brew...

[hefeweizen]

I have been lurking here for a couple weeks. My wife bought me a brewing kit for my birthday and I brewed my first batch Sunday and pitched the yeast last night. I took a SG reading right after pitching and it came back at 1.032 @ 64deg. It is a hefeweizen. That seems a bit low (I think the recipe call for somewhere around 1.05). Fermentation is going strong this morning though.

Any thoughts? Thanks in advance.

-Ron

 

[Professor Frink]

Welcome! Your SG reading is a bit low, but I wouldn't worry about it, chalk it up to experience. It'll probably still be a very good beer. What was the recipe?

 

[hefeweizen]

Welcome! Your SG reading is a bit low, but I wouldn't worry about it, chalk it up to experience. It'll probably still be a very good beer. What was the recipe?

It is an extract recipe out of "The joy of homebrewing" 6.6lbs of wheat extract, 3/4 oz hallertau hops, 1 smackpack of weinstephaner (Wyeast 3068) style yeast.

I hope it is good. Can't wait to try it.

Thanks,

Ron

 

[Go Gators]

It could have been low due to insufficient stirring of the water you added to your wort. So your sample would contain a higher amount of water than the rest of your brew. That is not a big deal as far as how the beer will taste.

 

[daryk77]

should be fine since you are using extract, all the malt sugars are already there. What probably happened is the sugar settled a the bottom of your fermenter before you took the reading, from combining it with the cold water. Really stir it up next time, or take the reading after aerating the wort, if you want to take an accurate SG reading.

No worries though because the yeast will churn it up and find all the sugars anyway. The gravity will be what Papazian says it is, or at least pretty close to it.

 

[daryk77]

ahhh, Go Gators beats me with the ninja post, sneaky bastard

 

[hefeweizen]

Thanks for all the help guys. I think you are right about it not being mixed enough. The wort sat for a bit until the yeast starter was ready. Once I pitched, I topped off with water. I swirled it around but probably not enough before taking the sample.

I feel much better now. The brewing part was really not too hard (granted it was a pretty simple recipe) it's all the sanitizing that takes the fun out.

-Ron