Help with Higher than expected SG

[merhlyn]

Hi everyone,

Usually when I brew I come in at at lower than what is expected (via the instructions) for my OG.
Tonight I made a Brown Ale
When I did my SG I got 1.074 instead of the 1.055 the directions called for.
What do I do? let it go? add more water?

I did an extract kit and topped off with RO water. I stirred for about 4 or 5 minutes. LOL I was not watching the clock so I may be off a minute or so

Thanks all.

 

[trevorc13]

Yeah add water till you get your target SG. You can use a brewing calculator like the BrewBot app to do this. Then take out the same amount of wort as the amount of water you added to get back down to your boil volume (make sense?). If you don't do this you will mess up your BU/GU and your beer will be out of balance. Give it a try.

 

[jro238]

That's a big friggin difference. I would double check that you corrected for temperature in your gravity reading (this wouldn't make up for the whole difference) and that you added the correct amount of top off water/extract in the recipe. If both of these look good (since you stirred the living crap out of it already) then just go ahead and add some more water as trevorc13 said.

 

[flars]

Your OG can only come out higher if you added more LME than is in the recipe or you don't have 5 gallons of wort in the fermentor. Don't add water.

Check the calibration of your hydrometer in distilled water. At 60° or 68°, depends upon which hydrometer you have, should read 1.000. Jarring a hydrometer cause cause the paper scale inside to slide.

Check the SG again. Be sure the hydrometer is not stuck to the side of the sample tube.