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Finally brewed my first batch!

Northern Brewer General
#1

As is everyone else that brews their first batch, I am concerned, but for opposite reasons than most. Everything seems to have gone according to plan on my first batch. From the setup to the boil to cooling the wort to pitching the yeast, everything seemed to go ok. Should I be concerned that there were no issues? :wink: The only thing that wasn’t exactly correct was the OG. I brewed the American Wheat Beer and the directions say the OG should be 1.043. Mine came in at 1.032. I’m sure I should RDWHAHB, but I was wondering if someone could give me an idea how this will affect the final product.

BTW, this board is awesome. I have been lurking and reading for a few weeks and I have learned a ton of info. The best part is that I was able to put the info I read into practice when I brewed my first batch. I think us noobies are fortunate to have a forum where there are folks that have been brewing for a long time and give sound advice. So, for that, I thank you!

Regards,

Matt

#2

Assuming you did extract and correctly hit your correct volume you aren’t off your og. You just didn’t get the wort mixed well.

#3

I too would bet it was wort stratification. If you did top off with too much water the beer will just have less ABV. Congrats on your first batch!

#4

Yes it was extract. You may be right about not mixing the wort well enough. I did swirl it around in the fermenter before pitching, but maybe didn’t mix it quite good enough. There was 2 gallons of fresh water, then the wort and then I topped it off to the 5 gal mark. I have to get a big spoon so I can really mix it and get it aerated.

Thanks for the quick post!

Matt

#5

Thanks! At this point is there any way to increase the ABV to where it should be?

#6

You could boil some more extract but I would just leave it be. At this point its much more easy to screw up than to fix.

#7

It’s really hard to mix the wort and water 100% (even with a spoon). sometimes you’ll just have faith that you hit your OG. With extract there is a known amount of sugar, and sugar doesn’t boil off. So if you ended with precisely 5 gallons, and used all the extract, then you hit your OG.

#8

If it was a NB extract kit and you ended up with 5.2 gallons in the fermentor, you OG was spot on, unless you did not mix in all the extract.

Now ferment cool and give it time.

#9

^^ What he said.

#10

Congrats on your first batch!

I have only done about 35 or so batches - way less than many on here. Still, of those my very first batch ended up being one of my best. Maybe it really was better, maybe it was just the concept that it was my first one - not sure. either way I was the same - start to finish seems like everything went well.

Sounds like you did a great job, and congrats.

#11

My first batch was a little over two years ago. I saved about a 6 pack from each of my first 6-7 batches. I decided that I am making much better beer now than I did then, for many reasons, most of which were educational lessons learned right here.

Anyway, I chilled and cracked open one of each of my first two batches the other night and they were really quite good two years later. One was an amber ale and the other was a brown ale from Midwest kits. Did not know about NB at the time. I was pleasantly surprised, especially since I was just developing a palette back then

#12

I brewed about a dozen extract batches, and I kept having low OG problems too. The problem was really two-fold:

First, the wort/water wasn’t mixed well enough.

Second, the hydrometer is calibrated for water at 60 degrees. Most time our wort was between 80-90 when checking the gravity. This easily accounts for a few points of gravity.

In the end, switching to all grain just gave me more OG headaches, because I really COULD be off my target.

But you know what? Beer was still made and beer was still consumed. So oh well!
:cheers:

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