Beer Forum

I just brewed a hefeweizen extract with an OG of 1.049. When I measured it with my hydrometer it reads 1.080. I spun the hydrometer and pushed it up and down but it goes back to 1.080. Is something messed up, or will it be okay?

Make sure you are stirring a lot before you take the sample. I think you just got a concentrated part of the wort due to lack of stirring. That's just way too far off to be right. Unless you went from a 5gal recipe to like 2.5gal.

SnowGoon99 wrote:Make sure you are stirring a lot before you take the sample. I think you just got a concentrated part of the wort due to lack of stirring. That's just way too far off to be right. Unless you went from a 5gal recipe to like 2.5gal.

+1, stir and make sure you added enuf top up water to hit the total recipe volume, usually 5 or 5.5 gal. Also, someone smarter than me recently suggested calibrating my hydrometer. If you float yours in water that's 60F, it should read zero.

If that doesnt work, post some recipe info. We can figure out about what your OG should be if you give: lbs of extract, liquid or dry extract, and the number of gallons of the finished product would get you mostly there. Steeping grains can add to the OG a little too if you want to throw in weight and types.

SnowGoon99 wrote:Make sure you are stirring a lot before you take the sample. I think you just got a concentrated part of the wort due to lack of stirring. That's just way too far off to be right. Unless you went from a 5gal recipe to like 2.5gal.

You hit that right on! After stirring better I hit 1.049 on the money!

Thanks for the help and quick response.