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Low OG with DME

Extract/Partial Mash Brewing
#1

So, yesterday I did a quick 1gal kit from Craft-a-Brew—their Cascade single-hop IPA. I followed the directions to a tee and didn’t have any issues during the process, but my OG came out to 1.048. According to the company, it should have been 1.067. Since the recipe used DME and specialty grains, I’m not sure where this discrepancy could have come from.

The only things I can think of are:

  1. Their instructions say to pass the wort through a fine mesh strainer on the way into the funnel/carboy, and maybe I used one that’s too fine, pulling too much out of the wort?
  2. The top-up water wasn’t integrated well enough when I pulled my sample?

Any ideas here?

#2

Follow-up question: If the low OG is correct, what’s the upshot here? Do I get basically a session IPA, or will it just be a really weak/watery beer?

#3

This. How much DME was in the kit?

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#4

It was 1.5lb light Pilsen.

Here’s the basic recipe: https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/cascade-single-hop-ipa-50605e

(Guessing slightly on the hops and specialty grains since weight wasn’t listed and I didn’t measure before adding.)

#5

Briess light pilsen has a yield of 43 points per gallon (per NB’s site), so assuming you got all 1.5# dissolved, this would yield 1.5 #DME * 43 PPG / 1 gallon = 64.5 gravity points, or an OG of 1.0645. The specialty grains probably make up the difference in the recipe to get you to 1.067.

Unless you didn’t add all the DME or it didn’t get dissolved (unlikely), it should be fine. The top-up water must not have been mixed in fully.

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#6

Cool, thanks. Sounds right to me.

Either way, it’s happily bubbling along in the fermenter and close to overflowing the blowoff. :smile:

#7

Yeah that’s a common problem and this similar question was recently asked in the forum. Similar circumstances, but different recipe. Did everything to a T, but the hydrometer sample that was taken was from the top and the person didn’t thoroughly mix the wort before taking the sample. If you followed it to a T like your saying, you should have ended up with your OG target or in the ballpark. Especially speaking for a kit like yours. Had it been allgrain, there would be many more variables to consider.

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#8

This ^^

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