Og not on the mark

[r_marczak_83]

My ipa called for an og of 1.062. When tested mine came out to 1.052. I think I added too much fill water after boil. Will this make for a nasty beer?


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[Kee]

It just won't be as strong, should taste fine. In some styles it may not be as well balanced, but in an IPA it should not make much difference.

 

[mrgrimm101]

Should be fine. If anything, it may be extra bitter/hoppy. Lots of variables can affect the OG. What temperature was the beer before you took a sample? Did you calibrate your hydrometer beforehand?

 

[ncbrewer]

Assuming the gravity is actually lower than planned due to too much cap-off water, the IBU's will be lower. But the bitterness balance will be as planned. See this article for some details: http://finnhillbrewing.blogspot.com/2011/04/bugu-ratios.html

You said you think you added too much top-off water. If you actually didn't, the gravity sample might not be representative. It's really hard to get thorough mixing of the heavy wort and top-off water.

 

[flars]

Mark all of your fermentors to the fill line, if your brews are typically the same volume, i.e., 5 gallons, with a carefully measured amount of water. You can also add quart markings, above and below, the 5 gallon mark.

Was this brew a kit? If it was, you may have added the correct amount of top off water, but the top off water was not well mixed with the fermentables from the boil. Your SG sample may have been drawn from an area of the wort with a lower density of fermentables. Incomplete mixing happens quite often with less than vigorous aeration. The yeast will take care of this when active fermentation begins.

The OG of a brew kit recipe will be the OG of your wort if you add all the fermentables and have the recipe volume in the fermentor.

 

[r_marczak_83]

Should be fine. If anything, it may be extra bitter/hoppy. Lots of variables can affect the OG. What temperature was the beer before you took a sample? Did you calibrate your hydrometer beforehand?

It was 75 degrees


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[Wrangled13]

both of my brews this weekend were low on OG. Not sure what is going on as they are easy extract kits and I wasn't in the range, and started with a full boil. Back to the drawing board

 

[r_marczak_83]

So if I dry hop also, would this make it extra hoppy?

 

[r_marczak_83]

Mark all of your fermentors to the fill line, if your brews are typically the same volume, i.e., 5 gallons, with a carefully measured amount of water. You can also add quart markings, above and below, the 5 gallon mark.

Was this brew a kit? If it was, you may have added the correct amount of top off water, but the top off water was not well mixed with the fermentables from the boil. Your SG sample may have been drawn from an area of the wort with a lower density of fermentables. Incomplete mixing happens quite often with less than vigorous aeration. The yeast will take care of this when active fermentation begins.

The OG of a brew kit recipe will be the OG of your wort if you add all the fermentables and have the recipe volume in the fermentor.

I did check it after I stirred it.

 

[mrgrimm101]

Dry hopping will add hop aroma..no bitterness and not much flavor, if any. Reading at 75 can skew the reading. They say that 60F is optimal..a reading at 70 degrees is probably off by about .02-.04. So really you are probably closer to 1.056-10.58. Not too far off from your target

 

[r_marczak_83]

I was unaware of the temp affecting the reading like that. I will not worry too much about it then. I think I will dry hop with Columbus and citra hops.


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[mrgrimm101]

Yea usually they say to take readings at 60F or like 68-70F. Also to calibrate your hydrometer at either of these temps..that way you should get a consistent reading.

I have an app on my phone called HomeBrew Calculator and it seems to calculate ABV and Attenuation fairly well, given you know the temp of the hydrometer sample, the OG/FG, the temp of the fermenting beer, and the volume.

It may still be under by a few points on the OG, but it's so easy to miss a target OG. I wouldn't worry too much about it. Nothing to do now except RDWHAHB

 

[ncbrewer]

You can find a temperature correction chart on "How to Brew"
http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixA.html

 

[r_marczak_83]

Thanks for the infomation!

 

[joshesmusica]

I agree with all of the above to cool all the way down to your fermenting temp (hopefully around 65 F) before pitching the yeast, and taking your OG reading right before pitching the yeast.
I'm an extract only brewer right now, due to lack of funds to get better equipment. I always boil at 11-12 liters, then cool my wort in an ice bath. When I get down to about 35-40 C, I have 3 or 4 1-liter bottles that I have put in the freezer after I have shut the flame off (I also do a hopstand for about 20 mins). So then that helps me get down those last 15 or so degrees celsius. At this point I have anywhere from 15-17 liters of wort in my boil pot. I then siphon the wort off the trub into the fermenter and use a strainer, which is great because it can help aerate it pretty well at this point to, and doing this helps cool it all the way down to the 20C that i'm aiming for.
Then I check the OG before I top off. After that I add my top off water 1 liter at a time (stirring very well, then measuring again) until I reach the estimated OG. Often times I will end up at the estimated volume of wort (19L or 5g), but every now and then it will be over or under. If it's over, I try not to go over 19.5 only because I use my brew pot as my bottling bucket and it's 19L.
I recommend this method if you're trying to get the exact estimated OG. If you're just trying to get a specific amount of wort, then ignore this entire comment.

 

[ncbrewer]

I agree with all of the above to cool all the way down to your fermenting temp (hopefully around 65 F) before pitching the yeast, and taking your OG reading right before pitching the yeast.
I'm an extract only brewer right now, due to lack of funds to get better equipment. I always boil at 11-12 liters, then cool my wort in an ice bath. When I get down to about 35-40 C, I have 3 or 4 1-liter bottles that I have put in the freezer after I have shut the flame off (I also do a hopstand for about 20 mins). So then that helps me get down those last 15 or so degrees celsius. At this point I have anywhere from 15-17 liters of wort in my boil pot. I then siphon the wort off the trub into the fermenter and use a strainer, which is great because it can help aerate it pretty well at this point to, and doing this helps cool it all the way down to the 20C that i'm aiming for.
Then I check the OG before I top off. After that I add my top off water 1 liter at a time (stirring very well, then measuring again) until I reach the estimated OG. Often times I will end up at the estimated volume of wort (19L or 5g), but every now and then it will be over or under. If it's over, I try not to go over 19.5 only because I use my brew pot as my bottling bucket and it's 19L.
I recommend this method if you're trying to get the exact estimated OG. If you're just trying to get a specific amount of wort, then ignore this entire comment.

Extract is very predictable in the ppg added to the wort - you should really be able to calculate in advance and go with the calculated total volume. The times you needed more or less water may easily have been due to incomplete mixing - it's really hard to get complete mixing of the water and sugars.

 

[joshesmusica]

Extract is very predictable in the ppg added to the wort - you should really be able to calculate in advance and go with the calculated total volume.

Yeah it should be predictable. I've been using Beersmith, and they have an automatic prediction of what percentage of yield you will get out of the extract. It just turns out that a lot of times I was getting a higher yield than the software had automatically put in for it's yield, which is 95%. Until I consistently get that percentage down, which I assume will be different with every boil with a beginner's setup, then I was simply suggesting to the OP that until he gets his process down, it's a pretty good method of filling up as long as he mixes really well between each reading. The best way to tell if he's mixing well, i think, would be to maybe measure two or three times each time from different spots in the bucket.

I love all of the advice that I get on here, it has helped me to be far above the level of many of the other beginners on here (because I always check out all the info I can on a topic before I implement it into my brewing). That being said, sometimes there can be people on here that give advice assuming everybody has the equipment setup that they have. If you have ****ty equipment to start out with, then it can be difficult to get consistency. So I have simply developed this system in order to help me reach my goal.

 

[ncbrewer]

I've been using Beersmith, and they have an automatic prediction of what percentage of yield you will get out of the extract. It just turns out that a lot of times I was getting a higher yield than the software had automatically put in for it's yield, which is 95%.

Now you've got me interested in this software. The yield happens in the mash. LME or DME is the mash product, and whatever you put into your kettle is there at 100%. I don't use Beersmith, so I'm not familiar with their formulas. Possibly a stretch, buy maybe they put in a factor for how much you scrape out of the can, pouch, etc. Or maybe a calculation for specialty grains (very small amount of sugar, but still fairly predictable). I stopped checking OG a while back for extract batches because I found I was just chasing the number that I already knew was correct from the extract ppg.