Strangely low OG. How?

[Hwk-I-St8]

My buddy created a recipe from memory that he brewed 15 years ago. He didn't use an app, so the OG of 1.045 wasn't a shock to me, but he seemed surprised. I plugged the fermentables (3 lbs dme, 3.3 lbs lme and some steeping grains and it came up at 1.057 for a 5.5 gallon batch.

We put exactly 5 gallons into the fermenter, so ours should have been even higher. Now I can see how an AG brew can come in low, but with extract, how the hell does that happen?

He's blaming me because I recommended he add the LME for the last 10 minutes of the boil instead of for the whole 60 minutes (partial boil), but I can't see any way that would affect the OG. The sugars in the extracts are a done deal regardless of boiling.

Thoughts?

 

[IslandLizard]

3.3# LME @36 ppg = 119 pts
3.0# DME @44 ppg = 132 pts

Total 251 pts
In 5 gallons that is 251/5 = 50 ppg ==> Gravity is 1.050

You are right, adding LME at the end does not change the gravity, and it does make better beer. So does fermentation temp control.

The steeping grains should have added some points too.

But you'd need to add a lot of specialty malts to get to 1.057 in a 5.5 gallon batch.
57*5.5 = 314 pts, so that's 63 points more. Crystal and specialty malts give around 33-35 ppg, which means you'd need about 2 pounds of those.

Did you account for wort losses, wort left behind in the kettle? An OG of 1.045 sounds low indeed.

 

[flars]

May have been just a SG measurement error especially if you had to top off the fermentor to reach 5 gallons.