Too low of gravity. Any suggestions?

[660_Memphis]

Me and a friend brewed 10 gallons of this pumpkin beer on 9/13/13 using BIAB and scaled the 15 gallon recipe by .66 for measurements. We ended up with only 1.04 gravity after boil, however, instead of the 1.053 that the recipe has. Most of that is probably due to not having enough room in the sparge pot and maybe not stirring the grains enough. How bad is it to be off by that much and is there anything to do to help counter this? I was thinking maybe I could make a really strong 1 gallon steep of some grains and add it to the secondary or maybe add more sugar or something. Any help is welcome! Thanks!

 

[BigFloyd]

I'd be inclined to let it ride at this point.

 

[rgauthier20420]

That's a pretty wide miss you've got there. I've got fellow brewers that have had issue with hitting gravity numbers using BIAB also, so your volumes on that end could be to blame. Also, what were you figuring for your efficiency and is it accurate to the system you brewed on? You might have just not used enough grain when you converted the recipe. Those are a couple other factors that could have happened. That issue you can figure out later.

Back to your question, there is no "problem" is missing your OG by that much. You end up with a lower ABV beer is all. In order to increase this while it is in the fermenter, you would need to add additional sugars while the beer is at high krausen. That is to say them when the fermentation is really kickin and it looks likes it's about to blow off. One way is to make a small wort again and boil it down, chill it, and then pitch it. You'd want it to be similar to the 1st also. You could do the same thing with pretty much any type of sugar also. But to get back to where you started it might take a bit, and I don't know how to calculate the additions into ABV. Perhaps someone else can help with that. With adding things this way, make sure you mind sanitation.

Personally, I'd let it go man and spice it nicely. The later just seems like a big hassle for 1% of alcohol in the beer really. You'll end up with some between 4-5% anyway, which will be a perfect drinking beer for the colder months. Good luck.

 

[660_Memphis]

The owner of the local brew shop said to boil up 2-3 lbs. of light dry malt extract and that it should raise the gravity a few points. Would it be worth trying to do this on thursday and give it another 3 or 4 days to ferment before moving it to a carboy to clarify? I have my 10 gallons of wort fermenting in 2 different bucket fermenters so if I would need to use as little water as possible to add the DME to. Not sure how much water to use but would 3 lbs. fit in half a gallon of water without sticking to the bottom of the pot or burning?

 

[eastoak]

Whatever you do don't pour sugar in there. Sugar will raise the ABV but it might be thin and not pleasant to drink.

 

[660_Memphis]

Ok cool glad to know that. Would light gold DME do the same or would it "thicken" the beer a little

 

[eastoak]

Ok cool glad to know that. Would light gold DME do the same or would it "thicken" the beer a little

Yes, malt extract is what you want to use so you can get ABV and retain body/flavor.

 

[660_Memphis]

Ok cool thanks for that info! Would it be a problem if it is not until Thursday before we add it? I'm too busy with school exams before then to do anything. Also, I assume the less water we add the DME to, the more it will raise the gravity. What is the minimum amount we could use with 3 LBS? We could also maybe do 2 and save the other lb. if needed but we have 3.

 

[eastoak]

Ok cool thanks for that info! Would it be a problem if it is not until Thursday before we add it? I'm too busy with school exams before then to do anything. Also, I assume the less water we add the DME to, the more it will raise the gravity. What is the minimum amount we could use with 3 LBS? We could also maybe do 2 and save the other lb. if needed but we have 3.

I don't brew with extract aside from making starters, but I would just put it all in a pot then add water until it's all in solution, heat, cool, pour.

 

[jro238]

I'm sure there is a calculator out there for lme weight to gravity change with a given volume. I would probably base water volume on this or just use the volume of water that looked right.

 

[johngaltsmotor]

You can either live with a session pumpkin ale or hit it with the DME to pump up the ABV and body. If you want to add the DME... you missed by 0.013 and DME is ~45PPG so you need 2.9lb of DME in 10gal to bring it up. Add in the volume of water you'll have to dissolve that in and I'd suggest using the entire 3lb. If it were me I'd start with the DME in a container and add boiling water until you have a pretty thick syrup (essentially make your own LME). My complete guess would be that it will likely take at least a half gallon to dissolve 3lb.

The question is: is it worth risking not boiling all of that to kill off any potential bugs?

As a standard step in my prep for brew day I calculate the amount of DME needed to makeup for shortcomings in my pre-boil gravity. This way I know if Gravity is low I add X.X ounces of DME per 0.001 I missed my gravity by.

 

[660_Memphis]

Thanks for the help everyone! I think I am going to just put the DME in a pot, add water until it looks thin enough to boil, and boil it for 5-10 mins to kill of any bacteria. According to an online calc and my possibly wrong math, adding the 3lbs to half a gallon would put me just above the gravity I am looking for, and putting it in a gallon would put me right below. I will let yall know how the gravity and taste is when we transfer it to the carboys in a week in case anyone is curious.

 

[660_Memphis]

Well after a little over a week of fermenting with an extra 3 lbs of the DME, the FG has come out to around 1.011. The Recipe called for 1.017 but at least it's not below 1.01 and probably would have been without the DME addition. I feel like I read that anything below 1.01 is considered low enough to worry about. I think the starches from the pumpkin will probably help give it a rich mouth feel that would be lacking in a beer with too low of an FG. Guess I will just see what happens after carbonation and conditioning