high gravity

Im brewing ales right now and i usually get an SG of 1.060. My last batch had an SG of 1.066 ish. Wondering what would cause the higher SG and is it a bad sign or does it just mean ill have a higher ABV in the end?

It could just be the recipe (more malt) or if it was an extract batch, it could be your mix wasn't great. Did the recipe call for an OG? Beers are all over the place in OG, different recipes have different OGs.

A higher OG does not always mean a higher ABV. A recipe with a lot dextrins (non-fermentable sugar) will have a high OG and finish with higher FG because of the dextrins. So really need to see the recipe to determine what went into the brew and the mash schedule/process used.

Extract brew 1.5 lbs pilsen dme and a german hop forgot the name. Put 1/4oz hops and 1lb of dme in right away and the last .5lbs 20 before flame out. Boiled for 45 minutes. I have been expirimenting with where i add my dme and have kept consistant 1.060ish at 70° after cool down. This last one was the second time i did 1lb right away and .5 lbs at 20 minutes to FO. Also have had consistant FGs of 1.010ish at 70° at the end of ferm right before racking to secondary, just this one batch had OG of 1.066ish. Only difference between this one and last one was this one boiled up at one point. Had to walk away for a second waited till boil was calm walked away came back and it was almost boiled over lol. Could that boil up cause the higher OG.

If it's extract, the answer is that you didn't mix it well enough. If you used the specified amount of extract and hit the correct volume of beer, you literally cannot end up with any other SG number - there is a set amount of sugar available in that extract, and it's now all in the beer. Thing is, it's tough to get a complete mix of heavy wort and plain water. Don't worry, though - the yeast will do it for you.

This is a ridiculously common newbie "mistake" that's really a nonissue. Many, many, many new brewers "miss" their OG, when it's just a mixing issue (I did it a couple of times before I learned). Just use your kit/recipe's target OG and go with it.

Ok im just more confused now lol. The dme dissolves mostly cause of the boiling doesnt it. So how can i effect how much it mixes in? About the only other difference i can think of is i took primers out of the dme so i might have only put in like 1.4 lbs but didnt think that would effect much. Idk gravity stuff i guess must still be a little mis understood by me or something. You also mentioned a common newbie mistake but i dont get what you are saying is a common newbie mistake.

Also so your using terms OG and SG arent those the same thing. Plus like i said i havent had any problem hitting OG of 1.060 at all yet and thats what im supposed to hit and even hit higher then that on this last batch. I guess all i need to know is, is the beer still good and should i wait for 1.010 before racking to secondary or should i only expect 1.016?

Nevermind on the OG SG question my mistake i was using SG as starting gravity wheni should have used OG but just remembered that SG is specific gravity.

Homebrewdads comments are true if you top off with water. It is necessary to mix the water really well with the wort in order to get an accurate gravity reading..

You can also get increased gravity as a result of boiling more vigorously which will evaporate more water. I would guess this is what happened in this case, based on your comments about the boil.

-a.

OG and SG are the same thing: the reading you take before pitching yeast. What they are saying is that it is common for new extract brewers to not mix the DME thoroughly, which results in portions of the wort to have a higher gravity than others, so that when you take a reading you are getting numbers that are slightly off one way or the other. The other issue is that if you are adding too much top-off water, or do not have enough to be at full volume when you take a reading (and again you have to mix this in thoroughly) you end up throwing the numbers off again. Just remember that gravity is a measurement of how much sugar is in the liquid, if you water it down too much the proportions are off. If its not mixed thoroughly, again the small sample that you are testing will be too watered down to accurately reflect the gravity of the entire batch. Sorry, being wordy but hopefully it helps.

Well i dont do top off water i start with more about 1.25 gals water and when finished i end up with about a gal after evap and ferming. So my only question left would be how to mix the dme in better i continualy stir until the boil settles down and isnt boiling up anymore then i periodicaly stir until my last dme addition then i go back to stirring continually until settled again. I cant think of anything more i could do to get the dme mixed in better.

One thing that will help is to stir it after you've cooled the wort before drawing your gravity sample. Also consider that with a batch size as small as a gallon, even a few ounces difference in the total wort volume can throw off your SG calculations.

also, I personally wouldn't worry about a few points here and a few points there. After enough batches you can start tightening down some of those details but really those 6 gravity points aren't going to make a huge difference.

Ok i figured it was going to be ok and at worst if my FG is still 1.010 like usual ill just have about 5.6%abv instead of 5% abv correct?

well, if your reading was accurate then yes. I think what most of us are saying is that your reading is probably not accurate due to the sample not being fully mixed up so that you will end up with the exact same ABV as you had for other batches. If accurate though, then more booze! Can't complain about that.

Lol nope! And i guess it could be off cause i took my sample out hot and let it cool seperate from the batch and i think i took it out of cooled batch on all the other ones not 100% sure though so maybe that is why it was a little higher and in that case would just be an inaccurate reading.