Plinian Legacy OG way off

[mikerunsmountains]

Brewed NBs Plinian Legacy extract kit today. My OG was 1.040 instead of my target of 1.070. Followed directions to a T with two exceptions: 1) forgot to add the .25oz Amarillo when steeping grains before boil (so I threw them in before adding the 4lbs DME) and 2) used the full 1lb of corn sugar instead of the .75lb it called for. Really confused because if anything the extra sugar should have upped the OG. Did a 3gal boil and added that to 3gal water in the Carboy (recipe calls for 6gal batch size) and pitches my 1.5L starter into that.

Any ideas?

 

[Kent88]

Just so we're clear, this is the recipe kit you used: P.L. Instructions

Have you contacted NB and asked them? They have a chat system through their website, and possibly an 800 number you could call.

That is odd, because you ought to almost get 1.040 just from the DME and the sugar, without adding any LME.

 

[Gavin C]

This has all the hallmarks of measurent error

Did you thoroughly homogenize the wort and top up water prior to taking a hydrometer sample?

If yes how did you do this.

 

[mikerunsmountains]

Kent, yeah that's the kit.

Gavin, did the boil and then cooled with my chiller to 100F. Poured from BK through a strainer into my carboy which had about 2.5gal of cool water in it. Then added about .5-.75gal more to get the total volume up to 6gal. Used a large syringe with tubing to pull a sample from the carboy and put that into my graduated cylinder and used the hydrometer to measure. Even adjusted the calculation for temperature which only made a difference of about .002.

I'm pretty confident that I didn't make a measurement error, although I'd had a handful of beers by this point also.

 

[Gavin C]

Without adequate mixing you were taking the sample from the mostly water top. By the sounds of things. With extract kits it really is not possible to be off by that much. The sugars are there. If the numbers are wrong it speaks to measurement error and not deficient product in the vast majority of instances. There are highly unlikely exceptions to every rule of course.

 

[mikerunsmountains]

That makes sense. Thinking back on it now, I may have done the shaking of the carboy after taking my measurement.

On the plus side, brew day went significantly better than prepping my starter last night. That ended in my laptop dying after the Erlenmeyer flask explosively boiled over and covered my kitchen. Lesson learned.