I brewed the Innkeeper Pale Ale yesterday and followed the NB recipe kit to a T. There was a lot of sludge in the kettle so I didn’t add the bottom two inches or so to the primary fermenter and needed to add additional water to get to 5 gallons.
I took the OG and it was 1.030 (the kit says it’s supposed to be @ 1.042). I checked the primary this morning and active fermentation is beginning and it’s starting to develop a nice krausen.
Did I screw something up? I’m thinking it’s probably going to end up being a little lower ABV.
You left 2" worth of sugars behind in the boil kettle, and added additional water to make up for it. Thus diluting the sugars you did transfer.
Also, it is very difficult to completely mix the “top off” water with the wort. So you may not have gotten a true sample of the gravity.
IF you are fermenting in a pail, buy some “paint strainer” bags from the hardware store. Put them in the pail and pour the boil kettle in. Then pull the bag out the remove most of the sediment. This will also add some oxygen to the wort.
Otherwise, no you didn’t screw anything up. It will still be beer in the end.
You could make up a concentrated table sugar solution and add that to the fermenter to up the OG. 1lb of sugar raises the OG by ~1.009 in 5 gallons. If you boiled 1pt of water with 1lb of sugar, cooled it and added it to the fermenter, that would get you in the ball park. If you gravity is truly low.
It should be a decent enough (albeit low ABV) beer at 1.030 if that is what it really started at. I would be reluctant to put more table sugar in it since there is already a pound? of sugar in the beer and it’s thin to start with. If you really wanted to up the ABV I’d do boiled and cooled DME. That said I would probably just leave it.
Thanks so much for the feedback and suggestions. I think that I will leave it and will post when t’s kegged to see how this turned out. Also, in re: to a question about the hydrometer reading, I believe that it is correct. I just upgraded to a better hydrometer and this new hrdrometer tested accurately on the Irish Stout that I brewed a few weeks ago.
One other question - should I have just poured more of the sludge into the primary?? I think I didn’t do this b/c I was originally just planning on leaving it in primary and not racking to secondary (I usually do rack to secondary).
Thanks again for the suggestions. It’s about 2.5 days into fermentation and primary ferm. is slowing down, but it’s still bubbling, so I think it will be fine, just lower alcohol. Hopefully, a great session beer.
Pick up some distilled water from the store to check the accuracy of the hydrometer. But you also need an accurate thermometer to match the calibration temp on the hydrometer.
If you are fermenting in a pail, pick up a 5 gallon paint strainer bag from the hardware store. Line the pail with it and dump the boil pot into the pail. Pull the bag out and you will catch most of the hops/trub.
If using a carboy, you could try straining it in funnel, but that can be a pain.
