Did the Wherry kit, made a newbie error - any suggestions?

[markowe]

Oh... bother. I do a lot of various kinds of brewing and even the thing that shall not be mentioned here (legal where I live) but it's donkey's years since I did a kit beer, so I got the Woodfordes Wherry which everyone raves about and... made a newbie error:

I ADDED 23 litres of water instead of making it UP to 23 with the 3Kg extract included. Ended up with 1032 OG instead of 1042 where it's supposed to be. Anyone got any suggestions what I might do to get back on track - add some fermentables? What kind? seems a shame to tinker with this kit which is pretty perfect as-is, by all accounts, but then maybe I should've thought about that..? Just take the hit and enjoy the weaker ale (just drink more)?

 

[joe1002]

It will be weaker and thinner. You could add sugar (dissolved and boiled in a little water) to up the strength or use som DME (again, dissolved & boiled) to increase the strength and body.

 

[JonnyD]

Are you sure you have mixed everything together properly? Whereby never usually goes that wrong. Maybe giving it a good stir for 5 full minutes then taking another OG reading. Failing that if you want it 1042 you will have to add more fermentables. Use beer enhancer if you do as it won't make thin the beer and will give it extra depth of flavour.

 

[markowe]

Thanks for the replies, oh I know exactly why the OG is low, it's definitely because I added 23 litres of water TO the 3kg extract, instead of making it UP to 23 litres total including the extract - total newbie error, but easy to make, at least so I try to console myself :)

I suppose I was wondering what fermentable would be best to put in there so as not to deviate from the Wherry style too much - I am really reluctant just to chuck sugar in there, though I suppose it might not matter too much if I am just making up the shortfall on 3 litres or so of water (assuming the 3kg of extract was about 3 L)? I just worry the sugar will add strength but not flavour, whereas some additional extract would at least contribute to the taste.

I haven't got any DME to hand, though my homebrew shop is a bit of a trek - I might be able to rustle up some plain-jane (generic, health-food store-type) LME, or maybe some light Pilsner type if I can get to the HBS, would that be an OK bet?

Can anyone confirm, if I want to effectively make up for 3 extra litres of water I would need about 400 grammes of LME or about 330g of DME to get my target OG back up to 1.042?

 

[winelight]

If you had made it correctly to 23l total, then according to SG calculators, you would have to add 7l (of water) to bring the SG down to 1032. Therefore it is still a possibility that it is not stirred enough (which doesn't matter, it just means your SG reading will be wrong.)

Adding sugar will make it stronger in terms of alcohol but make it taste even thinner. Add DME (or LME) instead. No need to boil.

(edit) Yes I use food-grade LME. It's fine. Yes one jar of 340g will do. I usually add extra fermentables anyway, none of this is precision stuff, you know. It's all a matter of taste.

 

[markowe]

If you had made it correctly to 23l total, then according to SG calculators, you would have to add 7l (of water) to bring the SG down to 1032. Therefore it is still a possibility that it is not stirred enough (which doesn't matter, it just means your SG reading will be wrong.)

Adding sugar will make it stronger in terms of alcohol but make it taste even thinner. Add DME (or LME) instead. No need to boil.

(edit) Yes I use food-grade LME. It's fine. Yes one jar of 340g will do. I usually add extra fermentables anyway, none of this is precision stuff, you know. It's all a matter of taste.

Thanks - oh yes, you're right, I thought the extract was well-dissolved, but after an extra stir we are definitely talking more like 1.036 in fact. I think then I will probably just chuck in 300-400g of food-grade LME and we should be sorted. I know there's no need to lose sleep over the details, I am just annoyed I screwed up the Wherry kit as I wanted to see what it was like, as it is so highly regarded, and where I live (Eastern Europe) English-type ale, bitter etc. just isn't available. But as long as I can "thicken" it up a bit I doubt I will know the difference (until I make the next Wherry kit and compare!)

By the way, on a point of interest, talking of food-grade LME, I have heard that it is manufactured in such a way (something like higher temperatures?) that gives a better yield and is fine for food use but creates more unfermentables and therefore you end up with a sweeter brew, with higher FG. That's certainly been borne out in my experiments - I tried making like a "SMaSH" a while back just using health-food LME and got OG: 1050, FG: 1022 - rather sweet and not very alcoholic, and basically pretty rank.

I suppose it won't matter much for my 10% addition, but thought I'd throw that out there.

 

[winelight]

Yes not many people round here are fans of food-grade LME. But as you say it's such a small amount.

I add one or even two jars to many of my brews because I got a lot very cheap. The sweeter, or maltier, taste that you end up with could also be considered to be "more mouthfeel", which can be a good thing. It all depends!

 

[markowe]

Yes not many people round here are fans of food-grade LME. But as you say it's such a small amount.

I add one or even two jars to many of my brews because I got a lot very cheap. The sweeter, or maltier, taste that you end up with could also be considered to be "more mouthfeel", which can be a good thing. It all depends!

Yes, or to quote other people, makes your beer taste like biscuits :). Again, not necessarily a bad thing!

Well, my HBS doesn't stock bog-standard LME or DME (they are heavily AG-oriented) so I guess food-grade malt it is - unless I think up something loony to make up the gravity, like actual biscuits or something.

Thanks people.

 

[calumscott]

I don't know if it's just me but this seems to be the first brew mistake of choice at the moment!

The advice given by others is correct, either add further malt extract to bring the gravity up a bit and consider a dry hop too to add a bit of flavour which will be lacking or just have yourself a thinner, weaker beer, learn from it and move on to the next one!

I have, in light of this added a further note to the OMG! How To hopefully to stop a few of these in future...

 

[markowe]

I don't know if it's just me but this seems to be the first brew mistake of choice at the moment!

The advice given by others is correct, either add further malt extract to bring the gravity up a bit and consider a dry hop too to add a bit of flavour which will be lacking or just have yourself a thinner, weaker beer, learn from it and move on to the next one!

I have, in light of this added a further note to the OMG! How To hopefully to stop a few of these in future...

Sounds like a move - unfortunately, having a bit of brewing experience of various kinds I got a bit complacent.

The instructions on the Wherry kit say (verbatim) "Add 3.5 litres of boiling water, top up with cold water to 23 litres..." which if you were not paying attention (like me) you could interpret to mean "...top up the water you have already added to 23 litres". If they just wrote "...top up to 23 litres, including the extract", that would basically help most people avoid that silly mistake.

Anyway, I have chucked in about 500g of food-grade LME which gives me 190 points per litre per kg (according to my above-mentioned testing), which is still not quite enough I don't think for my missing 6-8 points (my maths is RUBBISH) but should pretty much paper over the cracks without making it too sweet :)