OG is way off from the recipe, what happened?

[sterling33]

I brewed a double belgian the other day using extract and the recipe said the OG should be 1.065 and I got a OG of 1.038 how could my OG be so far off? I thought using an extract it should be most spot on. The only thing I did different with the recipe (from recommendation by my local brew store) was change the recipe from 7lbs of DME to 6lbs LME & 1lbs DME. Would this have screwed up my OG by that much? Also is this going to change my time needed for secondary and bottling time?

Thanks in advance,
S.

 

[oakbarn]

How much water did you add? How long did you boil? According to my BrewPal you should have an OG of 1.060 post boil (ie 5 gallons) Pre boil would be 1.050 Switching between DME and LME make no significant difference in potential sg. It effects the SRM (color) and flavor (not much)/

 

[Qhrumphf]

If anything, swapping out pound for pound LME with DME would increase your OG (DME contains a little more fermentable sugar per pound than LME)

I'm assuming you topped off your fermenter after a partial boil? As long as you added the right amount of top off water, your OG should be about the same or slightly higher than the recipe indicated. You probably just didn't thoroughly mix the top off water, and your OG sample was more top off water than wort. Just continue as planned and just assume it's correct. You're right- with extract the OG should be incredibly close to the recipe. The sugars there are the sugars there, and unless you overshot your final volume, it'll be correct.

 

[Grumpybumpy]

Yeah, you pulled top water. I'm confident you're spot on

 

[day_trippr]

[...]Switching between DME and LME make no significant difference in potential sg.[...]/

That'd be true only if you don't think the water weight in LME (~20%) not present in DME would pose a "significant difference" in potential sg...

Cheers!

 

[sterling33]

Thanks for all the replies, I didn't even think about the top off water not fully mixing when i took my reading and that was probably my problem. The airlock is bubbling so I'm going to continue as planned hoping that everything works out. If it doesn't I'm sure I'll have some more questions for you guys.

Cheers