O.G. and F.G. Numbers

[ktheavner1965]

New Member and 1st post so forgive me if this has been covered. My O.G. # is always lower than recipe states but my F.G finishes lower than stated. Ex. recipe states O.G. 1.059 and F.G. 1.015. I measure O.G. 1.048 and F.G. 1.010.
The question is does this in any way affect the flavor profile of the style? ABV is usually close to recipe.
Thanks, KT from LTown

 

[Kent88]

Welcome to the forums!

In this case, gravity is a measure of the density of a liquid. Sugar solutions are more dense than alcoholic solutions.

I assume that you aren't making beer purely from extract, that your recipes include some amount of grain. You are not extracting as much fermentable sugar and other goodness from the grain as the recipe thought you should, which is a common problem for beginners. Practice helps.

I don't know exactly what flavor thresholds apply here, but I would guess that it won't be very noticeable.

 

[eric19312]

welcome to HBT KT.

Sounds like you are probably brewing with extract kits. Your actual apparent attenuation was a little higher than predicted but only a little so I don't suspect a problem with your hydrometer technique or with mixing the wort before measuring OG. Those are pretty common errors with new brewers especially working with extract.

Assuming your beer is mostly extract, my guess is either you are leaving too much wort in your kettle (maybe hops are soaking it up) or your volumes are off somewhere and you over-diluted your wort. I guess another possibility is you did not manage to get all the extract out of the can if using Liquid Malt Extract or you burned some of your extract on the bottom of the kettle.

If you are brewing all grain or with a substantial partial mash there are many other potential reasons for missing target OG but if you are brewing with extract you are dealing with a pretty simple mass balancing problem.

 

[kevin58]

Also... is your hydrometer calibrated correctly? When you take an OG reading are you correcting for temperature?