Newbie Help

[baggins22]

Hey Everybody,

So i am brewing an extract recipe + steeping grains. I was planning to make a 5gl batch using 6lb of malt extract. With that ratio, i would expect my OG (which i took after i added the 3gl boil to the 2gl of water and pinched my yeast) to be 1.080. The problem is it looks like i added to much water and ended up with 6gl!. My OG looks like 1.035 which seems way to low.

A couple questions.

1) am i taking the OG measurement at the right time?
2) is my beer ruined/going to be watery
3) when i was making my recipe i expected be in the range of 40 IBU (based on a 1.080 OG). but since my OG are now 1.035 my utilization rate is way higher. How can this be? since my OG is lower because it watered down, i thought think this would dilute the "IBUs"

Thanks!

 

[Theis]

Liquid or dry malt extract- with 6lb of extract and 6 gallons of water 1.035 seems reasonable, How did you calculate 1.080?

 

[zakleeright]

+1 for what Theis said. My calculator gives me this:
5.5 lbs of DME, gives me 1.040 with 6 gallons of water
According to BeerSmith software, to get 1.080, you'd need ~11lbs DME!!
I like to take a gravity reading before the boil, and BEFORE you add additional water to the boil.
I suggest not adding water to hit some particular volume of wort (my personal newbie mistake), but adding water to hit your target OG.
If you're an empirical kinda guy, add a bit, check gravity, add/check, add/check.
If you've read "Designing Great Beers" or have brewing software, you can take two readings: volume of wort right now, and SG. From that, you can calculate how much water is need to bring the OG down to target (or how much extract you need to add to bring it up to target if you're too low)
Cheers

 

[baggins22]

Thanks for the responses. I redid my calcs and i was dividing by 3 (the boil) and not by 5 (the total batch). Opps.

This brought up another question. When calculating the IBUs i need to test the gravity of the boil (in this case it would be 1.080) in order to find out what the utilization rate is. So lets say i get to 20 IBUs. but then i add 2 gl of water..doesnt that dilute the beer so its no longer 20 IBUs?

BTW i am using this site as some of my source:

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/chapter5-5.html

Thanks!

 

[baggins22]

any thoughts?

Thanks

 

[dcp27]

wort and water are tough to mix well enough to get an accurate reading. when using extract its impossible to be off as long as your volumes are right. you should be around 1.044 if liquid extract, 1.054 if dry extract

and yes, you're diluting your IBUs

 

[Theis]

Hopville.com has a great recipe calculator that takes into boil volume and gravity into account for hop utilization- many brewers now add the malt extract near the end of the boil to increase hop utilization.

 

[unionrdr]

We add most of it at the end,not all of it. I do a 2.5-6 gallon boil with half a 3lb bag of plain DME for hop additions. Then at flame out,add the remaining 1.5lbs of DME,then all the LME.
But you can't get 1.080 out of 6lbs of malt. I got a 1.065 OG for 6 gallons of my Burton ale out of 2 Cooper's cans,& a 3lb bag of plain DME,about 10.5lbs.
So 1.040 to 1.045 would be correct.
To get a good mix,I pour the chilled wort through a fine mesh strainer into the FV. Dito with top off water. Then stir with my plastic paddle for 5 minutes straight. That should give you more accuracy when measuring OG.