Original Gravity Higher Than Expected: Danger??

[Ballardinho]

Hi all,

I'm brewing my first pumpkin ale (3rd brew overall). I created a recipe (I'm an extract brewer) with input from a few great recipes on here at HBT. After running it through Brewsmith (a dozen times or so), I came up with a recipe that ended up with an estimated OG of 1.059.

While I don't have recipe on me, it was 6.6 lbs of LME, 1 LB of DME and 1 LB of steeping grains. I also used about 3/4 LB brown sugar.

Anyway, my reading was 1.074. I like that reading.....but wasn't prepared for it. I have no blow off tube and it's pretty damn late. So, I pitched my yeast (1056, 1 pkg....I didn't plan for more yeast as well, I think I may have needed more??) and am just waiting.....with a normal airlock. It started bubbling about once a minute almost immediately.

Am I gonna wake up to a huge mess?? Anything I can do at this point? Man....it smells so great...I hope it's not gonna get ruined!!

Also, any idea why I was so much higher? I'm thinking I meads up the water volume somehow....

Thanks, all.

 

[ChelisHubby]

Well I would take of the airlock and leave the Bung in place and if I can't rig up a blow off tube then I would prepare for a mess. Are you brewing in a bucket or a carboy and how much room does the brew have from the top? I would also try to keep it cool like 62 or 60 even as that slows down fermentation. What happened to your old blow off tube or did you have one? If you have a lot of room in the fermentor and keep it cool you might not even have a need for blow off. if you remove the airlock cover the hole with foil till it quits spewing yeast. Relax the Beer will probably fine just a little stronger than planned.

 

[Ballardinho]

I've never done a blow off. Just my third brew. I have a 6.5 gallon bucket with 5 gallons of wort in there.

 

[Ballardinho]

I guess my follow up is this: if I planned on a 1.059 OG, and this only had 1pkg of 1056, will I have too little yeast if it came in at 1.074? Package says really only meant for 1.060 and below. Should I have used more? If so, what can be done now (if anything...)? Thanks!

 

[jfk69]

I would have made a starter or pitched two packages for a beer with that high of an og. With that said, at this point I would let it ride.

 

[Trox]

After plugging the numbers into Beersmith it looks like you will actually have a OG around 1.057; it being an extract brew that is the OG you will get plus/minus maybe .002. I am guessing you used top off water, and due to the different densities of the wort and water you will never get them fully mixed together so you probably pulled your sample from the mostly wort layer which is why you are getting such a high reading.

 

[Ballardinho]

Yeah that's about the reading I was expecting. Thanks for running those numbers!

Woke up this am to a nicely fermenting brew so hope all is well. Fingers crossed, of course.

 

[grittanomyces]

Did you get your volume right? Meaning did you end up (or add water) with the amount the recipe called for?

If so, then I see little reason to even take an OG reading with extract. As the above poster said, if you hit your target volume, then it is not really possible to be more than a couple points off. There is no over/under-shooting efficiency, because with extract, the sugars have already been extracted. It is not possible to be that far off if your volume is correct (or close).

The important part is FG readings if you want to make sure the sugars ferment out. Once you've given it ample time for the krausen to drop and leave a ring of krud, then you can take readings every couple days to make sure the number stays the same and is close enough to your target FG to know it fermented out.

If you screwed up significantly on your volume, then it may become more difficult to determine what your OG/FG should be without knowing what volume you ended up with, and in that case, if it's showing a healthy fermentation, then just give it a few days after the krausen ring has dropped to transfer to secondary, or leave in primary for a total of 3 weeks if you're only doing primary, and you should probably be fine. Won't be your target ABV, but should be fine.

I didn't use a hydrometer for a while with no bad results. If it's not high gravity and you got correct volume and a healthy fermentation, chances are it's fine.