I did something wrong. Just not sure what, yet

OK, just did a gravity check from this batch in the secondary. 1.021 at 70F. Pretty weak.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with a beer that drops about 13 points. I regularly (intentionally) make delicious beers that start at 1.035 and finish at 1.010 - 1.012. From here, I’d be glad that the beer didn’t start at 1.070, because then it would have finished at 1.033 and been near undrinkably sweet (to me).

That’s only about 50% attenuation, way less than I would expect. Did you measure the gravity with a hydrometer or a refractometer? And if the later, did you apply the correction factor needed to get a refractometer reading to be accurate when there is alcohol in the solution?

Weak should be expected, it is not a big beer, but with that low attenuation rate I’d think it would still have a LOT of body. If the actual FG is lower, I’d think it would make for a good warm weather beer.

If it is really not to your liking, the only “fix” I can think of right now would be to brew another batch of something much bigger and blend the two before bottling.

Tested with refractometer. Didn’t know about the correction factor, but duh, I should have. I will break out my el cheapo hydrometer and check it again.
…and thanks for helping a guy out. I appreciate it

[quote=“FoamFollower”]2nd time brewing an All Grain batch. This one is Denny’s Wry Smile Rye IPA

16 lbs. of grain, 20-24 quarts or 5-6 gallons of water at 153F for strike.
1.5 gallons for mashout, and 8 gallons for Sparge.

I’m no good at math, but I checked and double checked with N.B.'s viddy and the numbers jibe.
I ended up with around 10 gallons of wort, wasn’t expecting that, I figured 6gal. like the extracts (once again I doubted my arithmetic) but I knew I was going to have more when the recipe calls for 14 gallons of water

The OG is way off. 1.044 on the refractometer, (brix of 11.2)

I wasn’t going to give up on it, so I pitched the yeast and carted it downstairs. Wait and see I guess…
What do you guys think? Will this be the first batch I toss? Any help would be appreciated

            Foamfollower[/quote]

I’m not sure if anyone else picked up on this but was your strike temperature just 153 or is that a typo. It’s obviously supposed to be the mash temp but if you errored here and it was your strike temp then it is very possible that your mash performed outside of the normal sacchrification range. You may have been low 140’s. I would think that could negatively effect efficiency.

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I’m not sure if anyone else picked up on this but was your strike temperature just 153 or is that a typo. It’s obviously supposed to be the mash temp but if you errored here and it was your strike temp then it is very possible that your mash performed outside of the normal sacchrification range. You may have been low 140’s. I would think that could negatively effect efficiency.[/quote]

Sorry for the confusion. H20 temp was 165F for mash in(?), where it sat at rest for 60 minutes at 153F. Verified