Forgot to shake up the wort

Northern Brewer General
1

Today I brewed up NB’s Dead Ringer IP. Everything went pretty smoothly until I took the O.G. and it was 1.028. It is supposed to be 1.064. I was done by about noon.

I did a couple of things differently today. First, I used a wort chiller with the cooling line going through an ice bath. It cooled the wort faster than I’ve ever cooled it before. It also left quite the break, and I ended up leaving about 1.5 quarts worth of wort/break/sludge in the brew kettle (is that normal?).

Since it was extract, I added about 3.5 gallons of water. I actually over chilled it, it was about 58 degrees when pitched.

After wondering all day if my IPA is going to be water with it’s 1.028 O.G., I remembered that I had not shaken up the water and wort in the carboy before pitching.

So I went back to the fridge at 8pm to look at it, and there is a definite break line in the carboy. Very dark near the bottom with trub already settling out; the upper 2/3 of the carboy is much clearer (watery) and obviously lower gravity.

Should I go back and swirl it around some now? Should I not worry about it? When the fermentation process really kicks in will it take care of itself? I’m already getting activity in the airlock.

I hope my dead ringer IPA is not in fact a dead ringer for O’Douls. Any thoughts?

2

Since it was an extract recipe, your OG is what the recipes says - unless you forgot to add some of the extract. You’re getting a low SG reading due to stratification of the water and wort in the carboy.

As far as whether or not to shake it now, that depends. How much yeast did you pitch? Aeration is more important when under-pitching. The concern at this point would be that if it’s started fermenting you could knock a lot of CO2 out of solution and make a mess.

3

Thanks for the note back.

Well, I left about 1.5 quarts of the sludgy white wort in the brew kettle and did not pour it into the carboy.

I pitched a pack of the Safeale US-05 that I had under a yeast starter (hydrated and quite active).

My oxygen aeration was pretty normal I guess - never seen any real directions for different types of beer. Used a 0.2 airstone.

So if the OG is as listed on the recipe (minus any loss for the 1.5 quarter), and it’s actively fermenting, should I not worry about it?