OG higher than expected

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
I brewed this recipe tonight: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/founders-breakfast-stout-clone-139078/

I followed everything correctly but ended up with an OG of 1.090. The recipe calls for an OG of 1.086. Why would my OG be that much higher? Will this be a problem?


Thanks,
Zach

You basically just had 5% more efficiency than the recipe expected. Or you boiled off a bit more water... did you end up with the same amount of beer?

It probably won't make any difference whatsoever

You could either dilute your beer by 4-5% or ignore it.
 
zach1288 said:
I brewed this recipe tonight: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f68/founders-breakfast-stout-clone-139078/

I followed everything correctly but ended up with an OG of 1.090. The recipe calls for an OG of 1.086. Why would my OG be that much higher? Will this be a problem?

Thanks,
Zach

I assume you're a fairly new brewer?

Everybody's system has different capabilities with regards to the amount of sugars they're able to extract from the grain. This is known as brewhouse efficiency. All this means is that your efficiency is a bit higher than the one assumed by the recipe - and ALL all-grain recipes assume a certain brewhouse efficiency. A brewer that wants to properly replicate recipes needs to figure out the brewhouse efficiency of their own system, and then use that information to adjust the amount of grains used (which is generally easiest using brewing software).

4 points really isn't that much, so it's possible it's not even a matter of dialing in your efficiency - it could be the same as the recipe assumes, or even lower(!) if you didn't carefully measure all the volumes (mash, sparge, pre-boil, post-boil).

But all that is obviously too late for this brew. Not a big deal though - I always recommend aiming for a slightly higher OG if you don't have your system perfectly dialed in, because lowering the OG is REALLY simple: just add a bit of water to dilute it down precisely to where you want it.

As for the rest, I recommend you buy a good brewing book to properly learn about all this stuff. John Palmer's "How to Brew" is definitely the best book to start with.
 
Back
Top