OG reading way low, what went wrong?

[Zac Taiclet]

So this was my 2nd batch i ever did. My first batch trying to do a full boil. My recipe kit i used was the Chinook IPA from NB, this should come out to a 1053 for OG. My OG came out to 1038 but being my first time using a hydrometer i didn't think about what the hydrometer was calculated at and what temp i took the reading at. Either way it came out to about 1040 after the adjustments, still missing the OG target.

The recipe is a partial boil which calls for 2.5 gal of water and then steep the grains in that. I did some browsing and found to steep grains 1 gal of water to no more than 1lb of grain. So my set up was steep the 1lb of grain in 1 gal of water. Since my boil off was 1 gallon i decided to start heating the 5 gallons while the 1lb was steeping. I got the 5 gallons up to about 165 degrees and then added the 1 gallon i steeped to it making it 6 gallons and then bring it to the initial boil.

After the 60 min boil i transferred to the fermenter and needed to add 1 gal of water still to get it to the 5 gal. Can doing all of this affect the OG reading? and what should i had done different?

I plan to leave in primary for 2 weeks and then 2 weeks in secondary and 2 weeks for conditioning.

 

[RM-MN]

With an extract batch, if you used all the extract and had the right quantity of water you hit your OG almost exactly but the malt extract is difficult to mix perfectly and you got a sample from where there was less extract. No worries about that.

I have a different idea for you. Leave your beer in the primary for 2 weeks as planned, then leave it there in the same fementer for another week. Very, very few beers benefit from using a secondary and there are plenty of things that can go wrong. Use the final week in the primary as your dry hop time.

 

[flars]

The Chinook IPA is one of my favorites.

Have you marked your fermentor with a measured 5 gallons of water before using it? Some fermentors with factory volume markings are not accurate.

 

[TheFrugalEngineer]

Am I understanding correctly that you had 1 gallons with steep grains added to 5 gallons, and still required a gallon of water at the end to get to a total of 5 gallons? Does that mean 2 gallons (plus the volume of your extract) boiled off? That seems like a lot. You might have ended up with more total volume than intended.

The good news is it should still turn into beer , perhaps just lower ABV than planned.