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RidingDonkeys

RidingDonkeys

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Alright, I've already gone down this road once, and I convinced myself that I was bat**** crazy. My first batch, a stout, yielded me 8%. I just thought that was cool. It was way stronger than predicted, but I added a pound of brown sugar to it so I didn't think anything of the bigger numbers.

Then I did a blonde, and got an OG of 1.090. The whole forum agreed that I was crazy. Impossible, user error, etc. I bottled that beer three weeks ago, so I'll be able to tell you a little more about that later this weekend.

So tonight I brewed Northern Brewer's Baltic Porter. The predicted OG was 1.070. I got a solid 1.122 at 78 degrees. Based on the temperature corrections, that ought to be a 1.124. Now that is just freaking ridiculous.

I bought a second hydrometer to verify, and they are both spot on. I marked all my buckets so I know exactly where the 5 and 6 gallon marks are. I check temperatures with every sample I take. My beers fall to a final gravity almost spot on with predictions for the kits.

So, I'm at my wits end trying to figure this out. My beers are good, so it isn't a problem, but it seems very out of the ordinary. Any thoughts as to what might be causing this phenomenon?
 
I wish I could drink six in a sitting. Right now I'm drinking copious amounts of Red Hook just trying to get some bottles for all the beer I've got to brew in the coming weeks. I've got a Kolsch ready to bottle and I'll need at least two more batches to fuel the big party in May.

I did get a nice good buzz off three stouts last weekend, but that's the most I've put in a row. I don't normally get buzzed off three beers, even my beloved Rochefort 8.
 
Southern Pines. I've got a package that I'm waiting UPS to bring me that is there right now. Maybe your fortune is an NC thing.

Kevin
 
well you said you added a pound of sugar to that first batch.

Did you add anything to the others?
 
I noticed from your previous thread you still haven't posted any details on your brewing. Extract, yes? but what are you adding? Sounds like you are adding sugar when you don't need to be. There's alot here we aren't hearing. If you are looking for help in explaining the chemistry, fill in the details please. If you are looking to brag, which I don't think is the case, no one is buying yet, it seems.
 
RidingDonkeys said:
So tonight I brewed Northern Brewer's Baltic Porter. The predicted OG was 1.070. I got a solid 1.122 at 78 degrees. Based on the temperature corrections, that ought to be a 1.124. Now that is just freaking ridiculous.
Click to expand...

So your recipe at 75% called for an OG of 1.070 and you got 1.124. Wow your like Houdini. You got 141% efficiency. Either that or your setting up your recipes at 10% eff. Pretty sure you need to quite drinking so much while brewing. If you don't believe everyone saying your crazy, have and experienced brewer come over for a brew with you.
 
Doomsday said:
well you said you added a pound of sugar to that first batch.

Did you add anything to the others?
Click to expand...

A pound of sugar should only give you about 8 points. So if you add about 6.5 lbs of it that should do it for those .#'s.
 
The first batch was the only batch I added anything to. There is absolutely no magic to the procedure. I'm using a 16 quart stock pot on a glass eye stove to do partial boils. I generally boil three gallons to start with, that way I've got room to stir when I add the malt.

It generally takes me about 45 minutes to get it to a boil. I steep my grains from flame on until I hit 170 degrees. I then run it to boil, and add the DME that comes with the kit. I bring it back to a boil for 45 minutes, add hops, boil for 15 minutes more, and cool with a wort chiller. Once I get it down to about 80 degrees, I put it in a 6.5 gallon bucket and top it off with cold water.

I absolutely shorted the blonde a little on the water, and have since taken the advice to mark all my buckets at 6 gallons, which I used a milk jug to determine.

Last night I used this Baltic Porter kit from Northern Brewer. I can post up the exact recipe if needed:
http://www.northernbrewer.com/shop/baltic-porter-extract-kit.html

It included 3lbs DME and 6lbs LME. I added the DME at first boil, and the LME with 15 minutes remaining as per the instructions.

Here is my big thing right now. I'm banging out a few more extract kits because I need a big stash a beer handy for a party in May. Once I get two more fermenting, I'm making the switch to partial grain and want to start formulating my own recipes. However, if I've got something majorly quirky going on, I'm likely to screw up a lot of batches when I get away from the controlled science of an extract kit. So I'm trying to pinpoint what the heck is wrong here before I branch out to my own recipes.
 
One other thought that might help. This is how I take my readings. After I've cooled the wort, added it to the bucket and topped it off, I use a beer thief to pull my sample. I place my hydrometer in the test tube and drop the sample from the thief until it floats. I spin and take the reading from the bottom of the meniscus. After writing down the reading, I remove the hydrometer and insert my floating thermometer to get a temp reading.

Could this be bad protocol?
 
I had a friend who didn't make sure his hydrometer was actually floating, he got a 1.1 reading on a 1.050 beer. ;)

Anyways, as I think I mentioned in your other thread, i don't know exactly what's going on, but what I do know is that you are NOT making 1.124 beer with 9 pounds of extract in 5 gallons. Oh, unless you're using heavy water. Or unless you've figured out a weigh to spontaneously create matter, which would be pretty cool.

The other thing that point to your initial gravity measurement being your problem is the fact that the beers are finishing up at the final gravity you expect. That would mean that you're getting much higher attenuation than the yeast is expected (by the recipe designer) to provide. For instance, you said your blonde started at 1.090, and ended at 1.010. That's 89% attenuation. And if you used Wyeast 1056 as they recommended, the attenuation range for that yeast is 73-77%. White labs, for their WLP001 which is the same strain, suggests 73-80%. So that yeast is not going to give you 89% attenuation.
 
RidingDonkeys said:
One other thought that might help. This is how I take my readings. After I've cooled the wort, added it to the bucket and topped it off, I use a beer thief to pull my sample. I place my hydrometer in the test tube and drop the sample from the thief until it floats. I spin and take the reading from the bottom of the meniscus. After writing down the reading, I remove the hydrometer and insert my floating thermometer to get a temp reading.

Could this be bad protocol?
Click to expand...

If you aren't mixing it up very well prior to sampling, then you're getting the bulk of your sample from the bottom of the bucket, which has the heaviest material. That would pretty much explain everything. For some reason, I thought we'd already discussed mixing in a previous thread, but i guess not. :D
 
discnjh said:
If you aren't mixing it up very well prior to sampling, then you're getting the bulk of your sample from the bottom of the bucket, which has the heaviest material. That would pretty much explain everything. For some reason, I thought we'd already discussed mixing in a previous thread, but i guess not. :D
Click to expand...

We did, but it was said that not mixing well normally resulted in lower readings.

This might be it though. I normally poor my wort in and then top off using my pull down faucet. I don't mix it with a spoon, but I make sure I get a good swirl going on from the water coming out of the faucet. Perhaps this isn't enough?
 
No it's not. I made that mistake a few times. Now I top off and stir it all up with a big wisk. This also helps aerate the wort before you pitch.
 
RidingDonkeys said:
We did, but it was said that not mixing well normally resulted in lower readings.

This might be it though. I normally poor my wort in and then top off using my pull down faucet. I don't mix it with a spoon, but I make sure I get a good swirl going on from the water coming out of the faucet. Perhaps this isn't enough?
Click to expand...

Ah, ok. Yeah, so whether you get high or low readings based on poor mixing depends on how you take the reading. I think most people doing extract and topping off probably aren't using a thief, so they are either using a turkey baster or just dipping a sample off the top with a sanitized measuring cup or something like that. But if you stick a thief all the way in and let it fill, you'll get a high reading for sure.

Yeah, the swirl probably isn't accomplishing much. you have significantly heavier wort at the bottom, and you're not providing much incentive for the lighter water to mix up with it.

Doing a full wort boil (i.e. boil the full volume, no top up water) avoids this issue entirely, but requires more cooling capacity.

You can also stir the crap out of it, since you're in a bucket (i think you said you're in a bucket, right?), and this will help with aeration as well, so that's a win.

As long as you're doing extract, the easiest answer is just assume that the OG is what they said it will be and don't worry about measuring it. because as long as you end up with the right volume, it will be, or at least close enough that the difference doesn't matter.
 

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