Super Low OG

Brewing Processes
1

I was trying to brew an Imperial Stout.  The Estimated OG was 1.112, and my measured OG was 1.056…

I didn’t crush quite as fine as i have in the past, and i did have a small amount more wort than i was expecting.  ~.5 gallon extra.

Anyone have any thoughts on what could have killed my OG?  Broken hydrometer?

I am probably going to dump some DME into the fermentor to bring the gravity back up.

Recipe
5.5 gallon batch

20.70 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US
1.00 lb Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM)
0.50 lb Black Barley (Stout) (500.0 SRM)
56.00 g Nugget [13.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min
14.17 g Fuggle, U.S. [4.75 %] - Boil 60.0 min
14.17 g Fuggle, U.S. [4.75 %] - Boil 30.0 min
1.0 pkg California Ale (White Labs #WLP001)

2

I don’t think it’s possible for 22 pounds of grain in 5.5 gallons of water to yield 1.056 SG. 
Here’s the questions that come to mind.

  1. Have you calibrated your hydrometer in plain water?
  2. Did you add any water post-boil?
  3. What kind of mash do you do (batch, fly, no-sparge)?
  4. How long and at what temperature did you mash at?
  5. Was your crush a little bit coarser than normal or a lot coarser?
3

1.  Not yet, but I have a hard time imagining it would be that far off without being visibly damaged
2. No
3. Recirc in a robobrew brewzilla, no sparge.
4. 60+ min at 66 C
5. All of the hulls were cracked and the germs were separating, but the germs were pretty much whole.

4

I wouldn’t add DME at this point. Just let it ride. It will be a stout… just not an imperial stout.

5

maybe some sugar?  I guess my intent with this beer was to be a high alcohol winter warmer style beer.  but you might be right.  I’ll let it finish out fermentation and see how it tastes and make decisions from there.

6

@BittCloud, none of your answers point to an obvious problem :frowning: .  That just leaves calibrating your hydrometer.  While I would also be surprised that a hydrometer could be that far off, you should calibrate it just to eliminate it as the problem.

7

Was your hydrometer reading done at the correct calibration temperature?

8

Temp won’t throw it off that far

9

I know it is a stretch, but it could narrow the range if measured from the boil kettle at high temp.

10

I did calibrate the hydrometer, and it was reading 1.001 with water…  So, i have no idea what is going on.

11

You aren’t brewing in the Bermuda Triangle are you?    :wink:

12

It feels like it some times

13

If your wort was massively stratified, it’s possible you measured a low-gravity layer.

14

Possibly you’re trying to run the same qty of strike and sparge liquor through a lot more grain in an attempt to get a high OG. That’s asking a lot of the mash. Efficiency is subject to drop when brewing bigger beers in one mash.

To help, you could split the mash grains equally into two more pedestrian mashes using a reiteration technique: drain runnings and sparge mash 1 as normal. Then empty the mash tun and fill it with the second half of the split grain into mash 2 but instead of using water as your strike and sparge liquor use the runnings from mash 1 to strike and sparge.

In another effort to save space in the mash tun, you could also mash only the grains that require mashing, steep the grains that don’t, and add the steeped grain liquor to the the strike or sparge liquor of the second mash.

Just some food for though.

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