How big of a mistake did I make..? 115th Dream IPA

Northern Brewer General
1

Hi, so i am not new to brewing, the 115th dream IIPA I “brewed” last night was probably my 12th batch or so. This was the first one I think I messed up though. I ended up boiling approximately 3.5-4 gallons for the wort, got all the way through the boil without a hitch except that at the end, I was so excited to use my brand new immersion cooler (I didn’t think it was going to fit into the pot with it being so full) that I forgot to add the 2 lb. of corn sugar at the end of the recipe. (!@!@#$!)

The wort was cooled by the time I realized it. Not wanting to lose the gravity boost from the corn sugar, i just added it to the cold wort (not sterile, I KNOW! It was 10:30 on a weeknight though and my fiance would have killed me if i would have stayed up to reboil. Plus I was thinking that could screw up the effects from the hopbursting) I stirred the corn sugar in, which reintroduced all of my solids and hops that had fallen to the bottom during cooling.

I began adding the cooled wort to the 2 gallons of cold water in my bucket and realized that there was some undissolved corn sugar at the bottom. I brought that up in temp until it dissolved and added it to the bucket. I ended up with about 6 gallons total in my bucket because the recipe expects you to lose a large amount of solids during transfer which i had to add to the primary in order to mix in the corn sugar.

OG=1.074 (expected: 1.087)

I am wondering if the gravity was low more because of the added volume (6 gallon) or because the corn sugar wasn’t dissolved at the time of reading. I am hoping that it will go into solution with the increased time (as opposed to increased temp).

Any thoughts out there? Anything different I could have/should have done? I pitched the yeast last night and when i woke up this morning it was bubbling away so at least i know there will be some level of beer at the end.

-Thanks!

2

Everything will be fine. Your gravity is low because of the added volume.

Next time if you fore get to add the corn sugar, at the right time. Just cool the wort and pitch the yeast. The next day take the sugar and dissolve it in water, then cool it and pitch that into the beer.

Either way you still will have beer.

3

+1 to the above.

Yes the increased volume would take the gravity down, no big deal thats still a respectable OG for an IPA. I don’t think its due to trub though, stuff that isn’t in solution doesn’t affect gravity. You might just have more than 5gal of liquid, that or the sugar still wasn’t mixed well and your graivty is closer to the expected than your measurement indicated.

Stuff doesn’t grow on sugar so you ought to be good to go there as well.

4

I expect the low OG was almost entirely due to you starting out with 6 gallons instead of 5 (1.087 diluted to 6 gallons would yield 1.073), but any undisolved sugars would’ve contributed as well.

As for the corn sugar being not being sterile, you’ll just have to cross your fingers. Hindsight is always 20-20. But here’s what you could have done. Rather than returning all your wort to a boil, you could’ve boiled the 2# of sugar in a quart or two of water (or wort), before adding it.

Good luck!

p.s. - sorry for the repetition; the other folks hadn’t replied by the time I started typing

5

Not very big. If something like that happens again I would dissolve the Corn Sugar in water and then add to the wort. The fermentation should agitate enough to dissolve any corn sugar that was still solid.

6

Thanks a bunch! I definitely feel better now. I didn’t think about doing a separate boil for the corn sugar, that is a good idea.