Overshot OG by 30 points with Grainfather

[tjosborne]

I brewed the Amber Ale from love2brew today. My OG should have been 1.051, but instead I hit 1.082. I did check calibration right after and it looked good. I know this is somewhat of a good problem but how can I correct this in the future? Take a lb of grain out of each kit? Or just sparge with one gallon of water? Grainfather calculators had me use almost 3 gallons. I don't know, I'm new to all grain and stumped.

 

[m1k3]

I brewed the Amber Ale from love2brew today. My OG should have been 1.051, but instead I hit 1.082. I did check calibration right after and it looked good. I know this is somewhat of a good problem but how can I correct this in the future? Take a lb of grain out of each kit? Or just sparge with one gallon of water? Grainfather calculators had me use almost 3 gallons. I don't know, I'm new to all grain and stumped.

You collected the anticipated volume (and not less)... and you got a valid gravity reading of 30 points high? Woah. (Did you double check with the wort temp in the hydrometer or that water reads 1.000 in your refractometer?)

If so, you have several options:
- Reduce your grain bill
- Dilute to desired OG
- Develop a taste for high ABV beer

Seriously, if the beer tastes good then you're right you've got a few good options that will all get you to your desired OG.

But if you are getting any husky astringency then the crush might be too fine.... (even so, I can't imagine being 30 points high). If the finished beer tastes good then you can just bump up your brew house efficiency and use less grain.

 

[tjosborne]

I have been getting astringency in lighter beers which I assumed was a ph problem. Today was the first time I used reverse osmosis and had a 5.4 mash compared to 5.8 before. I was usually 10 points higher before with Northern Brewer kits. I took the reading with a refractometer and tested it with reverse osmosis after and it was at 1.000

 

[chickypad]

I brewed the Amber Ale from love2brew today. My OG should have been 1.051, but instead I hit 1.082. I did check calibration right after and it looked good. I know this is somewhat of a good problem but how can I correct this in the future? Take a lb of grain out of each kit? Or just sparge with one gallon of water? Grainfather calculators had me use almost 3 gallons. I don't know, I'm new to all grain and stumped.

Your measurement or your volume has got to be off. That kit has 8 lbs of 2 row and 2 lbs of crystal, with 100% efficiency that would be about 352 gravity pts. If you really had 5 gals of 1.082 wort that's 410 gravity pts. Not possible by a long shot.

 

[tjosborne]

Ya I don't understand it myself. I'm kinda thinking maybe dripping steaming wort on my refractometer caused additional water to evaporate resulting in the higher reading If that's possible

 

[dyqik]

You need at least a two point calibration to check your refractometer. At the moment, you are only checking that it reads zero at zero, but not how much extra it reads for each extra Brix (I guess, rather than SG).

Make up a solution with DME to hit a specific SG, and measure that with the refractometer as well. And then dilute it 1:1 with distilled water, and check it halves the measurement.

The other issue can be stratification - was the whole batch well mixed when you took the sample? If not, denser, higher gravity wort can drop under lighter lower gravity wort and throw your reading off. This seems too far for that though.

 

[tjosborne]

Ya it was well mixed and it may be lack of the second calibration that's throwing me off. My gravity at start of boil was 1.070 so it read high the whole time.

 

[dyqik]

I suspect that either a) your grain was mismeasured, or b) your refractometer to SG conversion is significantly off.

Are you using an SG scale on the refractometer? Or are you using a calculator to convert? There's a correction factor needed to turn refractometer Bx readings into wort gravity that is different to the factor needed for Bx to gravity for wine or cider. Usually it's not that far off, but maybe it's set the wrong way round?

The SG scales on cheap refractometers are calibrated more for grape must I think.

 

[tjosborne]

It's just the $66 one Northern Brewer sells. Not sure if that's a good one or not. No I didn't use any calculators, just put the drops on and got the reading.

 

[dyqik]

OK, that's the standard cheap refractometer I'm talking about - available all over eBay etc. The SG scale on it is likely not calibrated for wort specifically, and you need to calibrate it with known SG solutions, and then use a calculator calibrated with those readings to get an accurate SG value.

But that really shouldn't make you 30 points off either, maybe 10 at most.

For example, the Brix correction factor I've measured for my single scale version of that refractometer is 1.0551 - so about 5% off for wort.

 

[tjosborne]

Ok now the next problem with the beer. Due to my high reading I pitched two rehydrated packs of us05. Then after realizing my reading was wrong I racked to keg after two weeks like the instructions said. It sat for a week and I just chilled it last night and it tastes like tart green apple, extreme acetaldehyde. Does this age out? I cannot drink as is, so tart it's nasty.