Too late to stir - low OG

[Maffa]

I put on my second brew on Monday (2 tin summer ale kit) and stupidly went through the motions when I should have stopped and thought.

- Both tins were warmed thoroughly and put in fv followed by 3 litres of boiling water - Stirred
- topped up from height with about 19 litlres of room temperature bottled water - Stirred
- OG reading was taken and only notched up 1010 (now this is the first ever reading that I have taken so I am severely hoping that I misread it, it was double checked though. Stupidly as I was in a rush, I bunged in the yeast and sealed the lid and left it.

Now I'm really worried that I have screwed this batch up totally from the start. The brew is bubbling away at a nice 21-22 degrees (snugly wrapped in thick offcuts of carpet).

Now I have to open her up after a week to chuck in the hop pellets, should I give it another heafty stir beforehand or just go with another gravity reading?

I mean 1010 is what it should end up at surely? I think I will check the reading of boiled water tonight to see what it reads but I am still concerned that I have messed up somewhere :wha:

 

[calumscott]

1.010 is highly unlikely.

A two tin kit will get you about 1.040.

The thing about stirring is...

...it's not just stirring - you really need to make sure that the cans + the hot water are completely mixed before topping up otherwise the extract syrup just sinks to the bottom.

You'll now never know what the OG was. However, I would suggest that a stir isn't a bad idea. Give it a really good one and scrape all the stuff from the bottom of your FV, yeast and all.

It'll just make it easier for the yeast to get to it and ferment it.

You might have to leave it a bit longer than normal to clear afterwards though.

 

[Maffa]

The thing about stirring is...

...it's not just stirring - you really need to make sure that the cans + the hot water are completely mixed before topping up otherwise the extract syrup just sinks to the bottom.

I think I'm all too aware of that now, bleedin hindsight! Its just that the 1st kit was only a one tin with 1kg of dextrose chucked in and didn't need as much stirring.

I guess 2 lessons learn't here,
1 - stir stir and stir again
2 - Dont brew when you're in a hurry :nah:

 

[calumscott]

Yeah, I had that problem with a kit or two in the early days - decent beer in the end though so don't worry.

Like I say, when you add the syrup and hot water make sure that is completely mixed before you top up. I think it used to take me a good few minutes with the paddle to get it all properly dissolved.

:thumb:

 

[Maffa]

Is it best to empty the tins into a saucepan with the 3 litres of boiling water to fully make sure it all mixed up first? I find that the extra long platic spoon that comes with most kits is pretty poor imho.

Presumeably said saucepan and better spoon will have to be sterilised too!

 

[calumscott]

What I used to do was:

Get 6 pints of water in a big pot on the stove and heat it up.
Pour a can into the FV, put the lid on
Rinse the can into the hot water in the pot
Repeat for second can
Pour contents of pot into FV
Stir until dissolved.

I used (and still do for mashing) one of those long plastic paddles that cost about 3 quid from your LHBS. They're really good for scraping the extract out of the tins and the straight bottom edge makes lifting the extract from the bottom of the FV easy too...

:thumb:

 

[Andyhull]

I just drop the contents of the cans into the sterilised FV then add 1lt of boiling water from the kettle to each can and stir until clean and then drop the contents of these into the FV over the lids so the cans are completely clean.

CAUTION:- The cans become very very hot once the boiling water has been used to rinse them!!!!!!

Then add the rest of the required boiling water (as per instructions) to the FV an stir until all desolved then top up to the stated volume with tap water keeping a check on the temp as i go, adding either boiling or cold water towards the end to get the required pitching temp.

The key to it is as Callum said, stir the syrup with the boiling water until fully disolved, it's really easy once you've done a couple! :thumb:

 

[Maffa]

The key to it is as Callum said, stir the syrup with the boiling water until fully disolved, it's really easy once you've done a couple! :thumb:

Sounds so simple, its just there's so many ways in which I can cock it up!

 

[pittsy]

The key to it is as Callum said, stir the syrup with the boiling water until fully disolved, it's really easy once you've done a couple! :thumb:

Sounds so simple, its just there's so many ways in which I can cock it up!

wait till you get onto all grain , there is a million little things to cock up , good luck with your brew.

 

[alawlor66430]

Chances are you will cock up from time to time when you start brewing I think it's because you get that excited about doing it that you rush things but don't worry because these little problems iron themselves out in the end and before you know it you'll have your own little routine down to a tee, have a mental checklist and give yourself a couple of minutes to run through it and remember rushing to do things quickly will cause more problems than it solves, take your time snd enjoy doing it all right.

 

[Maffa]

Thanks all for the advice guys but I think the cock up was not in the stirring but in the reading of the gravity!

I checked tap water last night, and the gravity of my first brew and quickly came to the conclusion that I had read the initial OG wrong! :whistle:

In fact I was reading the wrong scale (mine has 3 or 4 for some reason), and so it looks like the OG does in fact have a very healthy 1040 :party:

Panic Over

 

[bigboots]

I don't know why people insist on putting the syrup in first? If you add your 5/6 litres of boiling water to your FV first, when you then pour in the syrup much less will stick to the bottom. Makes it so much easier to get all of the syrup thoroughly mixed in. :thumb:
:

 

[chrisjj]

i agree :thumb:
i do the same, 5-6 liters of boiling water in first ,then add lme and stir ,then top up with cold water . :