OG too high!?

[nanoBrewer]

I'm brewing an ordinary bitter. The recipe I used has an OG of 1.036, but my OG was 1.050! (Yes, I adjusted the SG according to the wort temperature). I added a little more DME than the recipe called for.

Will the higher OG have any negative effect on my beer's taste? Do I need a longer fermentation now? (Sorry, if these are dumb questions - It's only my fourth batch.)

 

[Yuri_Rage]

You missed the mark by quite a bit, but it's not a lost cause. Added DME along with boiling losses (you can lose quite a bit of water to evaporation over the course of a brew) will increase your OG. You'll almost certainly increase the ABV and alter flavor of the beer a bit - most likely by making it a bit more "dry." RDWHAHB!

In the future, you can adjust a high OG like that by diluting the wort with a bit of water. If you want to adjust a low OG, you can add some light DME (or whatever DME you think would be appropriate).

 

[Mikey]

You might have been disappointed had your beer actually been 1.036. That's getting pretty 'thin' for a beer. I rarely brew anything less than 1.045

 

[nanoBrewer]

Here's an update:

Beer has been in carboy for five days with no visible signs of fermentaion, so I took a SG reading today. The SG is way down to 1.008! I tried the beer and it looks and tastes great. I think this one could turn out to be my best yet!

To all the other beginners out there, if you have only brewed with hopped kits, I highly recommend you try your hand at a recipe. I took this one from TNCJOHB, and I've already noticed an improvement.