Liquid Malt and Hydrometer reading

[BrewHaus]

Hey all,

I've just done my first AG brew today (took hours!)...it seemed a little bitter straight out of the fermeter but hopefully I got the hop IBU reasonably right. I screwed up the boil volume and ended up 6 litres short which wasn't so flash but...1st time I expected some stuff ups.

But...while I was doing this I thought I'd do a quick and dirty kit brew to replenish the stocks.

It was pretty simple:

1.7 kg of Coopers Lager for the IBU
1.5 kg of Thomas Coopers Light liquid malt
300gm Crystal
50gm Black malt
50gm Choc malt
25 gms Cascade as finishing hops
S-04 yeast
21 litres

I just took a hydrometer reading after adding the 3.2 kg of malt and it came up as 1.010!?

I pulled out an old hydro and it read the same.

After using the HB brew calc it said I should get an OG of 1.055.

This is very odd. Has this happened to anyone else?

I thought the hydro was the real yard stick of how much in the way of fermentables you had and with such a simple brew it should've read MUCH MUCH higher.

Cheers,
BrewHaus

[Tourist]

Sounds to me as though the extract had not dissolved and circulated through the wort properly before the sample was taken. Or your hydrometer is broken.

Don't worry about it - the beer will turn out fine.

[BrewHaus]

Hey Tourist,

I made sure both malts were nice and hot (10 min in the sink filled with really hot water) and poured them into the fermenter with 4 litres of warm water from the specialty grains. It looked like it was desolved nicely though would it need a litre or two of boiling water to properly desolve?

I took a double take when the 1.010 reading came up but a second hyrdo showed the same reading.

[warra48]

I don't know exactly what went wrong here, but with all those fermentables, it is impossible to have a true reading as low as SG 1.010.
That is, unless you made your brew up to about 121 litres, rather than 21 litres (not likely, surely?)

I wouldn't worry about it. Let it ferment for about 2 weeks, and you'll have a nice beer.

[Tourist]

So had you completely topped-up the fermenter to the full 21L before taking the reading? Or did you sample from the 4 or 5 litre volume? Maybe you were looking at an OG of 1.100, not 1.010.

Either way, something went tits-up with your reading, but as Warra said - it will all turn out for the best.