My first all grain - hydrometer mistake

[matti]

Hi, Iv finally made the move up from kits to an all grain brew last night. I went for a clone of Hopback - Empire stout (viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16428&p=194479&hili ... ut#p194479)

I was sparging and occasionally pouring some of the liquid running from the mash tun into a bottle and taking a hydrometer reading. I did this until the hydrometer read 1.008. However I didn't take into account the temperature of the wort which I think was around 70c and now doing a bit more research (that I should have really done before the brew) it seems that I should have added 0.021 to the hydrometer reading to get the real reading.

So i'm guessing that there was still quite a lot of goodness in the grains so I should have been able to get more wort out of it.. When I finished sparging, there was about 5 gallons on the boiler but after boiling this had reduced to around 4 gallons. I took a hydrometer reading after boiling once I had cooled to around 23c and the hydrometer reading was 1.060. The gravity listed on the recipe was 1.043. Will the beer turn out ok at the high gravity I got? If I had continued sparging for longer would the gravity have gone down to more near the gravity listed on the recipe?

Also for a 5 gallon batch, how much wort do you usually have before you commence boiling?

Thanks
Matt

[Robdog]

Im not an AG brewer yet but i have been told to stop about 1008-1006 and i think the adivce i was given accounted for the temp adjusment.

NOt sure on your final gravity question though sorry.

[haz66]

Your beer will be fine it will just be stronger than you may have wanted, maybe around the 7.5%ABV to 8% ABV, well thats at the maximum, if fermentaion stops around the 1008 or 1010 mark then it will be more like 6.8% ABV which is quite strong for a beer.
If you had continued sparging the gravity would have dropped because the amount of sugar left to amount of water sparged would have been a lot lower, what i tend to do as a rule is mash at a ratio of 2.5ltrs of water per Kg of grain and i always sparge 25ltrs of water, regardless of any readings, so at the strat of the boil i will have about 28 to 29 ltrs of wort, ending up with about 23 ltrs after the boil.(i`m not saying this is the correct way to do it, but its always worked fine for me)
I once did what you did and sparged untill the hydrometer was at about 1006 but i also forgot about temp adjustment, but the beer turned out ok, if anything just a little weaker on the flavour side than it could have been, but its certainly drinkable so i wouldn`t worry too much.

Stick at it and read as much as you can from this web site and you`ll soon be brewing very good beer.
Welcome to AG brewing you will never look back.

[matti]

Ah thats ok then, I don't mind it been a bit stronger. I just didn't want it to be like treacle.

Thanks