Help with first brew

[808brew]

I brewed my first beer today, an extract kit from More Beer. It is the Frank Ellis "Kicked-Up" American Pale Ale with an OG of 1.071. I followed everything to the 'T' and when I tested, my OG was 1.058. It started fermenting withing 8 hours so it's moving, but I want to figure out what factors influence this initial OG as the varience is too large. I used a partial boil but I hit my temps as noted in the instructions.

What might I have done that would make me come up this short on the OG.

Is there anything I could do at this point in the process to raise this like add something? Sugar?

Mahalo

[Nate Diggler]

Was your wort temperature around 130F when you tested your gravity?

[808brew]

Nope, it was under 80 as I did it after racking to the carboy and adding the top-off water, so I am guessing mid 70's at the most.

[Nate Diggler]

Then I'm stumped unless your volumes were off, or the recipe of the kit was off... it'll just be more bitter than you planned with the lower gravity.

[straight cash homey]

You could boil up a pint of water and dissolve some regular table sugar and add that to the fermenter. 1/2 lb will raise the OG about 4 points. I don't think I would add more than 3/4 lb, but 3/4 lb would raise it 6 points. i think i would add somewhere between 1/2-3/4 lbs and live with the slightly low OG. and since it was an extract brew, the table sugar might crisp it up a little. a little table sugar could be a good thing. catch a set for me bro.

[mattman688]

You could boil up a pint of water and dissolve some regular table sugar and add that to the fermenter. 1/2 lb will raise the OG about 4 points. I don't think I would add more than 3/4 lb, but 3/4 lb would raise it 6 points. i think i would add somewhere between 1/2-3/4 lbs and live with the slightly low OG. and since it was an extract brew, the table sugar might crisp it up a little. a little table sugar could be a good thing. catch a set for me bro.

i agree...i would boil up some sugar water...maybe around day 3 pour it into your fermenter...let the yeast work on the more complex sugars before adding the easy stuff....

[Dubba_Brew]

You might also want to test your hydrometer. It may be off... not your gravity.

[ColdBraue]

Your top off water and your wort may not have mixed well enough and the heavier wort sank more to the bottom, so you could have pulled off a more diluted sample from the top, which would have a lower gravity.
You also could have put too much top off water in your fermenter which is easy to do if you are not using a marked vessel.
You could throw some sugar in there if you wanted, but 1.058 is still a respectable OG for a pale ale, so you could just let it ride and see how it turns out.
Best of luck
Cheers!