OG - Too High!... maybe a bad reading!

[Fingar]

Hi Folks,

So I am a law-abiding citizen and abide by the laws of homebrew which clearly states that you must have a drink whilst brewing!

I have just racked a Summer Ale which had a grain bill of 3.4kg MO and 300g of Crystal and should have achieved an OG of around 1038, however, looking at my brew log on that day, it says 1048. I think that I may have been 'extra law-abiding' during that brew and misread the hydrometer by +10. Is it possible to get an OG that high from the listed grist? Me thinks that I notched up 10 points on the reading and that it should have been 1038! The FG read 1008 using Wyeast 1469 - I actually broke the law and didn't drink whilst racking - so with this OG/FG my light and quaffable ale will have an ABV of 5.2% or if I had read the hydrometer errr differently, it should give and ABV or around 3.9%.

Any thoughts?

Cheers... Fingar

[Matt in Birdham]

Do you have a refractometer? If so you can back-out the SG from the FG and a refract reading - there are calculators available online to do this.

Edit: here is the one that I use - you would need the third calculator on that page.

[Jocky]

Can you provide an estimate of the volume:

1) Into the boiler
2) Into the fermenter

If I was to assume 23 litres into the fermenter and 26 litres into the boiler then you would have a wort of about 1.042 going into the boiler which is about 93% efficiency. That seems strangely high, but not impossible if you are fly sparging heavily.

On the other hand if you ended up with 1.038 wort then that would suggest about 1.034 into the boiler, which puts you about 75% efficiency - much more reasonable.