First brew

[stubbq]

Ok guys I have just done my very first brew. It was a Irish red ale from northern brewer one gallon kit steeped the grains for 10 min per instructions at 150 then turned up the heat to boil added the DME and 7oz of willamette for 45 min boil. So when the time was up put the pot in the ice bath took about 15-20 min to get it down to 65 degrees so I transferred to carboy and it looks like I'm short on the gallon mark. The other thing is I didn't get to take OG so now I'm only going to get FG.

So where did I go wrong and how is this brew going to turn out and any help will be greatly welcomed

 

[s4l]

You simply didn't start the boil with enough water. You can take your pot and fill it with 1.5-2 gallons (measure it!) of plain water and boil for 1 hour (typical boil time) to figure out your boil-off rate. I do full 5 gal boils and I usually start with 6.5 gals to hit my 5.5 gal mark so I get a full 5 gals going into the bottles. You just gotta play with it.

 

[stubbq]

Well I thought I had enough the directions said to start with 1.25 gallons of water which I did so next time I will add some more to it cause I think I was way off

 

[Brewmex41]

7oz of hops in a gallon?

 

[woozy]

You didn't do anything wrong. It's to be expected that an extract batch comes up a little short. You just top it off with water. You can even you the topping off with water as part of the cooling off process by tossing in ice (prepared in a sanitary manner) or by putting refridgerated ice water in the fermentor (assuming you don't put in more than your boil-off).

But since you didn't top off your beer will be a little stronger and fuller bodied and a higher o.g. I'm not sure about final gravity but it will probably not be the targeted gravity. After two weeks when you think it is done take gravity readings two or three days apart. If the readings stabilize (are the same) then it is ready and that's your actual final gravity.

To figure out your original gravity: Well, let's suppose your instructions said it was supposed to be 1 gallon at O.G. of 1.042. Subtract the 1 and multiply by 1000 to get 42. That's the "gravity points". Volume x Gravity Points will be the same for a batch of wort no matter how much or how little water you boil away. So take your *actual* volume (if you measured it). Let's suppose it is 3 quarts or 3/4 gallons.

This means 1 gallon x 42 gravity points = 3/4 gallon x YOUR GRAVITY POINTS. This means YOUR GRAVITY POINTS is 56 (because 1 x 42 = 3/4 x 56). Divide by 1000 and add 1 and your O.G was actually 1.056.

But if you didn't measure your batch ... well, forget about it. You just won't know what you o.g was (except that it was higher than the instructions said).

 

[woozy]

Well I thought I had enough the directions said to start with 1.25 gallons of water which I did so next time I will add some more to it cause I think I was way off

Exactly. But if you still come up short, just top off.

There's an advantage to too much boil off; it makes cooling the wort easier.

And I have to repeat Brewmex41's observation... 7 oz.??

 

[stubbq]

Well thank you guys for the fast replies and that's why I went with a small kit to get started I will do a few more small kits then on to the big batches. My only problem is having a controlled fermenting area it's going to be hard to do here in SoCal it's starting to get warm

 

[Brewmex41]

I have an app on my phone that I toy around with, it said that 45 minute boil of 7oz of Willamette will give you 528 ibus (tinseth)

 

[stubbq]

Whoops that was 7 grams of willamette not 7 oz sorry for that