Hello all. I just made an AG Edmund Fitzgerald Porter. Trying to figure out these reading things so please be patient. The recipe call for an OG of 1.060. I took some wort out JUST before I started boiling. So that means everything was in there. First and second runnings. I let it cool down to 98F and took a hydrometer reading. It read 1.044. I looked up the conversion chart by Palmer and it said at 98F to add .0058 which would bring the reading to 1.0498 or rounded up to 1.050. So first question is did I do all those procedures correctly? Second question is what do these numbers tell me so far?
There are a couple possibilities:
- If your expected boil-off is ~17%, then with a pre-boil SG of 1.050 you’ll hit 1.060 post-boil.
- If your expected boil-off is something else, it could mean that you missed your target mash/lauter efficiency and will be a little off-target on the OG. Or it could simply be that the wort was still stratified. I’ve found that in order to get a consistent reading I have to wait until a couple minutes after the boil starts.
Another thing to remember is that you need to chill the wort sample in a sealed container. Otherwise you’ll get an artificially elevated reading due to evaporation. 98°F is a little warm to take a reading as well. Shoot for <80°F.
