Low OG help

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sunners1

sunners1

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first brew completed today as an AG, for my American Pale that’s an off shot of Punk IPA:
BIAB 5kg pale malt
75min boil with various hop additions

Just cooled and took an OG reading prior to pitching my yeast and it is 0.034 the recipe book has it at 1.053

Should I be worried or hoping for the best, it smells and tastes awesome
 
Having had a read there was some wort left in the kettle that was sediment, probably not mixed properly. I also topped up with 3l of water.

Have I ruined my brew
 
A bit tricky to follow this - but if your SG is 1.034 then you are definitely looking at a low-alcohol beer. Probably around 3.4%, depending upon the yeast you use. So, no, you have not ruined your brew. What you seem to have is a very, very low rate of extraction of fermentables from your mash - could be a load of reasons for this.
If it "smells and tastes awesome", then it should also be great after fermenting. Especially since, if it's a very hoppy IPA, then you'll be dry hopping a lot. So, if you don't fancy around 3.4% ABV then I'd suggest adding table sugar to the fermentor to up the alcohol content to your requirements. But don't add too much - your low extraction of soluble sugars might have also lessened the malt flavour.
 
What were you mashing in? With my 12l stockpot ive noticed that anymore than about 4kg of grain i lose efficiency big time and get very low og.

When this has happened to me i have boiled some sugar, let it cool and added to the fv. Others may be better placed to help but im sure ive read that 600g of sugar to 23l of wort will give you +1% abv.
 
If you topped off with extra water maybe you got a diluted sample? Or just bad extraction on you're first go, it happens. Any details of what you did with volumes, temperatures and times?

If you have a local shop (or some to hand) adding some malt extract would be better than sugar, boil and cool it at a pretty high gravity then mix it in.
 
Boiled 5kg of pale malt in 12.5l of water for 75 mins, sparged in 11.5l of water. I took the OG after the mash and it read 1.051. I then went to the boil, I am hoping it is due to the top up water as I moved it to a FV and topped up, I didn’t mix it well until I added the yeast.

Do you pour the sediment stuff from the bottom of your mash into the FV too?
Have I lost any hope now of knowing the abv due to already pitching my yeast?

Thanks all I had a panic straight after
 
sunners1 said:
Boiled 5kg of pale malt in 12.5l of water for 75 mins, sparged in 11.5l of water. I took the OG after the mash and it read 1.051. I then went to the boil, I am hoping it is due to the top up water as I moved it to a FV and topped up, I didn’t mix it well until I added the yeast.

Do you pour the sediment stuff from the bottom of your mash into the FV too?
Have I lost any hope now of knowing the abv due to already pitching my yeast?

Thanks all I had a panic straight after
Click to expand...
Take another gravity reading now, chances are the yeast have barely got going and it may at least offer an indication as to whether original OG reading was bogus.
 
1.040 bang on the nose.
My mash was a constant 66°c and I thought it all went well haha
 
I was worried about the mention of boiling too. :-) When you're asking about the sediment from the mash, I'm guessing you mean boil? Most folks let it settle and then leave it in the kettle as it's just a mess of spent hops and proteins and will make it harder to bottle clearer beer, but there's been experiments done it is might actually help fermentation so it's mostly up to you. I leave mine behind as I use a Grainfather which has a filter before the pump.

1.051 after the mash (and sparge?) that's in line with what I'd expect, you topped up with 3 L and most boil-offs are around 3L/hr so I'd expect roughly the same 1.051 OG, you probably just got a duff reading due to topping up and not mixing thoroughly before testing.
 

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