Two questions in regard to Original Gravity

[DonnieZ]

Brewed my second batch of beer last weekend - Midwest's Hop Head Double IPA kit with Wyeast 1056 and an approximately 800ml starter.

According to the sheet included with the kit, the OG should have been in the 1.07-1.074 range. After all was said and done, I ended up in the mid 1.06ish range. (I'm still getting the hang of reading the hydrometer..) By calculating out the gravity I should have gotten from the steeping grains and the malt extract, I figure I either did not get all the efficiency out of my steeping grains or I had an extra half gallon or thereabouts of water. (There were a LOT of grains compared to my first batch, about a pound and a half IIRC)

The final gravity of the beer said to be in the 1.016 - 1.018 range. I took a gravity reading this weekend it was around 1.02. I'm wondering should I be looking for a final gravity still in the specified target range or am I going to be looking a little lower (i.e Given 1.064 OG - 60/4 = 1.015). My thought process is the yeast will still eat through the same amount of fermentables just in a larger volume of wort, so it should end up to be a little lower FG, but I want to check with the masses to see where I should be before I move this to secondary. (My plan is 2 weeks in the primary, a week dryhopping then followed by bottling and conditioning for at least 3 weeks.)

Second Q:

I also got my Dad one of the Midwest Groupon deals and we brewed his Autumn Amber ale today. We did a full boil and after we had used the immersion chiller to get the wort down to about 70 degrees, I used a thief and dropped in the hydrometer that came with his kit. No matter how level I held the thief, the hydrometer kept falling against the side. The mass at the bottom of the hydrometer looked to be kind of more weighted to one side. Would that throw off the hydrometer's accuracy?


Thanks for the advice!!

 

[Moonpile]

Use a wider hydrometer jar. It makes it easier to read. Use the thief to fill the jar. Read from the bottom of the meniscus. Spin the hydrometer and read it as it slows down. I really like the hydrometers with a thermometer in them. Let it sit for 5 or 10 minutes before reading so you have an accurate temperature.

Make sure you stir well before taking your gravity samples, especially with an extract batch. If the boil water and the top up water aren't completely mixed you might get an off reading, one way or the other. That said, do make sure you have accurate volumes.

Don't get too worried about when to rack to secondary. Leave it in primary longer than you think. Maybe even consider dispensing with secondary entirely. You can dry hop right into the primary. There's lots of threads on this board that discuss the merits of extended primary and no secondary. Take a look and see what you think.

I don't think the weighting of that hydrometer would throw it off as long as it doesn't touch the walls of the jar or thief. If it does touch, that will screw it up. Easy enough to check with some 60F distilled water.

 

[dlester]

The hydrometer will give incorrect readings at any temperature other than 60F. The hydometer should have come with a sheet that gives you the adjustments for different temps. Here are a few, but you can find it on the internet:
Temp. Correction
70. Add 1
77. Add 2
84. Add 3
95. Add 4
105. Add 5

In addition, adding more water than is in the recipe will lower your reading. However, first get used to reading the hydrometer.

Good Luck, making beer gets better after learning from your mistakes.

 

[Kaz]

If you didn't do a full boil and added top off water at the end of the boil, then your gravity reading is probably skewed anyways. If you added all the extract that came with the recipe and hit the right final volume, then your specific gravity should be pretty close to the predicted. In either case, let it ferment for a few days more and check the gravity again, it may go down another couple of points.

 

[DonnieZ]

Thanks for the replies. I forgot to include that I'm doing all full boils. With that info, does that change matters?