Target Gravity

[polski]

I just racked a Fat Tire Clone I made to secondary (yeah, maybe not neccessary), and I took my hydrometer reading from the stuff at the bottom of the carboy (what may have been a little bit of beer and little trub). As i let it settle before taking my reading about 1/5 settled out to be trub, did this affect my reading?

Part two, that reading seemed high. My target OG was 1050 and i hit that, but my final gravity should be 1011. The beer was in primary for 8 days and occured on the low end of the 64-68 degree range. The reading I just took (as described above) came in at 1030.

Sooo...first, could my reading have been off because of my sample and i should just chill out until I bottle and take another reading? In the future, should i take a reading from the first beer out of the carboy? Should i repitch the yeast that i saved for a future batch (first time i did this) into this secondary ferm to get everything going again?

just a few questions

[Brewbear]

Photoguy,
What was your total volume? if you boiled 5 gal of water, you lost some and that would account for the high SG and as Chooch was saying, the yeasties may be closer to the end of the work day!

Polski, The sample used may still be slightly turbid and the reading will be off. Also, there will still be a slight amount of CO2 and that will form bubbles on the hydrometer--->erroneous reading!

Cheers,
Brewbear