Yesterday I started making a batch of beer using a Brewer's Best English Brown Ale kit. After boiling the wort and cooling, I started to add the recommended water. The instructions tell you to add water to approximately 5 gallons, but also warn against adding too much water and dropping below 1.045 specific gravity. I started checking s.g. early and was at 1.046 with barely over 4 gallons of wort. The given range for beginning s.g. is 1.045 to 1.049. I decided to stop there and added the yeast. This morning it is fermenting nicely. Should I have added more water? If I should have, is it too late to add now? When it starts to slow, I am going to transfer it to a secondary vessel. If I am right to stick with the 4 gallons, when it is time to bottle, should I only use 80% of the supplied priming sugar? Thanks, Al
Wort volume/specific gravity question
- Thread starter acy
- Start date
Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:
If you added all the extract, you need to add all the water. You were probably getting a low reading due to the top-up water not being fully mixed with the concentrated wort.
It's not too late to add water to get to 5 gallons.
Because fermentation has started, you will not be able to get an accurate OG reading, but by putting the ingredients list into an online calculator such as Hopville or TastyBrew, you can get a pretty accurate calculation. Try playing with the batch size when you do, you'll get a feeling for what is going on.
Oh, and don't bother with the secondary, just leave it in primary for 3 or 4 weeks, then bottle.
Cheers!
It's not too late to add water to get to 5 gallons.
Because fermentation has started, you will not be able to get an accurate OG reading, but by putting the ingredients list into an online calculator such as Hopville or TastyBrew, you can get a pretty accurate calculation. Try playing with the batch size when you do, you'll get a feeling for what is going on.
Oh, and don't bother with the secondary, just leave it in primary for 3 or 4 weeks, then bottle.
Cheers!
Yeah you got stuck in the most common new brewer issue, except you got fooled by it while adding your water.
We get this question 3-4 times every day, so you're not alone. And in reality, nothing's wrong.
It's a pretty common issue for ANYONE topping off with water in the fermenter (and that includes partial mashes, extract or all grain recipes) to have an error in reading the OG...In fact, it is actually nearly impossible to mix the wort and the top off water in a way to get an accurate OG reading...
Brewers get a low reading if they get more of the top off water than the wort, conversely they get a higher number if they grabbed more of the extract than the top off water in their sample.
RM-MN has a great analogy;
When I am doing an extract with grain recipe I make sure to stir for a minimum of 5 minutes (whipping up a froth to aerate as well) before I draw a grav sample and pitch my yeast....It really is an effort to integrate the wort with the top off water...This is a fairly common new brewer issue we get on here...unless you under or over topped off or the final volume for the kit was 5 gallons and you topped off to 5.5, then the issue, sorry to say, is "operator error"
More than likely your true OG is really what it's supposed to be. And it will mix itself fine during fermentation.
And just use the number it says in the instructions as the true OG, because it will be.
Next time go straight to your intended volume and don't worry about the gravity.....because if you hit the volume the gravity will be correct.
We get this question 3-4 times every day, so you're not alone. And in reality, nothing's wrong.
It's a pretty common issue for ANYONE topping off with water in the fermenter (and that includes partial mashes, extract or all grain recipes) to have an error in reading the OG...In fact, it is actually nearly impossible to mix the wort and the top off water in a way to get an accurate OG reading...
Brewers get a low reading if they get more of the top off water than the wort, conversely they get a higher number if they grabbed more of the extract than the top off water in their sample.
RM-MN has a great analogy;
When I am doing an extract with grain recipe I make sure to stir for a minimum of 5 minutes (whipping up a froth to aerate as well) before I draw a grav sample and pitch my yeast....It really is an effort to integrate the wort with the top off water...This is a fairly common new brewer issue we get on here...unless you under or over topped off or the final volume for the kit was 5 gallons and you topped off to 5.5, then the issue, sorry to say, is "operator error"
More than likely your true OG is really what it's supposed to be. And it will mix itself fine during fermentation.
And just use the number it says in the instructions as the true OG, because it will be.
Next time go straight to your intended volume and don't worry about the gravity.....because if you hit the volume the gravity will be correct.
