OG way too high

[spook123_uk]

Hi all,

I was brewing my batch of leftovers last night and all was going swimmingly. For the first time I hit my pre-boil gravity of 1.041 bang on.. then it happened.. The bottom smashed off the hydrometer when I put it down!

I was aiming for an OG of 1.053 to make it around 5.6%

Being 9pm, I had no chance of getting another so had to go blind, I completed the boil and obtained 23L of wort for the FV at the end. Yeast was pitched when it had cooled to 20 degrees.

I've just been to Wilko and bought a hydrometer and taken a reading. It is 1.066!

The yeast hasn't properly started yet as there is no Krausen or bubbling. Is there anything I can do to bring it back down? Is it safe to try and remove some Wort and replace with water? Will that hamper the yeast function?

or.. I jut leave it at 1.066 and accept the fact that I'll get a circa 7.5% US IPA! I used a sachet of WLP001 liquid yeast so hopefully, it can cope with that kind of OG.

 

[johnnyboy1965]

Boil a few pints of water, allow to cool to 20oC ish and add.

 

[MyQul]

This ^^^ What johnnyboy says. Here's a dilution calc so you know how much to add

http://www.brewersfriend.com/dilution-and-boiloff-gravity-calculator/

 

[spook123_uk]

Cheers,

I may have a problem in that there might not be the headroom in the FV and I'm worried about trying to remove wort in order to make room for water

 

[spook123_uk]

Actually, I've just taken a look. It's a 30L FV and I'm currently sat at about 23.5L. I'm going to take it up to 25L and hopefully, that'll bring me down to about 6.8% which is more acceptable.

 

[MyQul]

You can diluteat any stage. Do it before just before bottling. This will be a good stage to do it at as the wort will have been turned into beer and be at it's maximum protection from microbes.

So wait for it to fully ferment out. Syphon some into another bucket so you've got head room. Carefully dilute (so you don't splash and introduce oxygen) the wort in the FV.If your going to use a bottling bucket it would be good to simple rack the wort onto the dilution water.
Also dilute the bit that you syphoned off into a bucket or something then bottle that too

 

[Tony1951]

1066 sounds great to me. I am aiming for that these days in my brewing. I do restrict the amount of beer I drink though. Never more than a litre of it (6 or 7 units) and usually only one 500ml. It has a real weight to it and it is always well received by visitors.

Another thing is that it might not go down as far as you expect. On my brew before last, I got the mash a bit hot for too long and made a lot of unfermentable sugars. It stopped at 1.019 although it started at 1.066. That one is about 5.8 abv I think - coming on nicely. Had a bottle last night only five days in the bottle. If you must liquor back, you can do it after it has fermented with cool boiled water. I've done that a few times in the past when I wanted a certain number of bottles out of a batch. Works fine as long as you don't over do it.

If the SG was unexpected given the amount of grain you put in so that you suspect the reading is wrong, try calibrating your new hydrometer by filling the trial jar with water and you should get an indicated SG of 1.000.

 

[Simonh82]

Have you checked the accuracy of the hydrometer? Check it in water at 20oC and it should read 1.000. It seems odd that your OG would be so much higher than expected unless you really boiled it down a lot.

I bought two identical glass thermometers from Wilko's a couple of weeks ago and they were 3 degrees out from each other.

Sorry if this is a dumb response and you've checked this already but it was the first thing I though.

 

[spook123_uk]

Thanks. If I dilute at the end, how to I determine strength of the beer? Does the dilution calc apply and do I take the calculated drop from the OG to find it?

 

[MyQul]

Yes, use the calc. The first calc on the linked page applies. Wort volume- How many L you currently have. Current gravity-The number to input will be your final gravity after it finishes fermentation. Desired gravity - Input your targert gravity of 1.053. Click update and it will tell you how much water to add

 

[spook123_uk]

Excellent. I might do that then and leave as it is for now then dilute before kegging / bottling.

Thank you!

 

[MyQul]

Inputting your figures into the calc, it comes up with a final volume of 29.26L so you should just about fit it in your FV

 

[spook123_uk]

Yes.. I normally cold crash for a week in the FV once it's done. It's tempting to dilute when the yeast has finished but before crashing so I don't disturb anything when I come to keg / bottle from it

 

[Tony1951]

I bought two identical glass thermometers from Wilko's a couple of weeks ago and they were 3 degrees out from each other.

I was cursing a Young's thermometer a while back and nearly took it to the Home Brew Shop and demanded my money back. Fortunately it was a Sunday so I didn't make a fool of myself. Then I discovered something about the way I was using it.

Check out this thread before you write off your glass thermometers. My bet is that they are both good. If I'm wrong, I'll apologise and donate a gallon of beer to my neighbour. :)

http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/showthread.php?t=54435

 

[cheapbrew]

I did my quick math version and got 28.64 L so I wasn't far off.

23 X 66 = 1518

1518 divided by 53 = 28.64

 

[Gaspode]

I would be tempted to split the batch and bottle some at 7.5% just to try it, then dilute the bulk so that it is what you want.

Always nice to have some monster brew available for my mates who think they are hard drinkers. Invite them over, give them the strong stuff whilst drinking the regular stuff and enjoy their reaction when you are the one who can walk and they can barely speak.

 

[Tony1951]

I would be tempted to split the batch and bottle some at 7.5% just to try it, then dilute the bulk so that it is what you want.

Always nice to have some monster brew available for my mates who think they are hard drinkers. Invite them over, give them the strong stuff whilst drinking the regular stuff and enjoy their reaction when you are the one who can walk and they can barely speak.

I took a crate of my 7% IPA to a barbecue at my eldest son's place in the summer and my youngest son arrived with his wife and knocked back a couple while I was playing with fire in the garden. Then he came out looking puzzled and said he'd just fallen downstairs when he went to the bog and couldn't understand why! Had a good laugh when I explained.

 

[spook123_uk]

yup... Most of my brews are around 6% - 6.5% anyway and I'm no stranger to 7.5% US IPA's. It's just a pain that because I have strong ones on the go at the moment, I was shooting for something a little more sessionable!

I may well keep it strong and just do a weak one next time! I'm thinking about an Anchor Steam Clone / California Common which will come in at around 4.5% so this may well sway my decision!

I do like the idea of splitting the batch and only diluting some though :)

 

[spook123_uk]

Sorry guys. I completely missed the posts about calibration.. Stupid mistake from me. Here I am assuming that the hydrometer is correct... 20c water reads between 1.006 and 1.008 (hard to tell!)!!

Schoolboy error. There's me assuming that it will just give the correct reading

If I compensate, that puts me at 1.060 which if I get to 1.010 which is the target as I'm trying to get it quite dry, I get around 6.5% which will be fine..

Still over what I was shooting for and I need to figure out why at some point.

Thanks all!.. and don't buy hydrometers from Wilko!

 

[Gaspode]

I love those US Steam beers/IPA's and have a Brupaks San Francisco Steam Beer conditioning in bottles at the moment. Looks great, lovely colour and was clear as a bell when it was bottled.

At £15 for 10 litres though it isn't the cheapest option and this is one of the main drivers to moving from kits to BIAB/All Grain.