Odd gravity reading

[MattGuk]

Hi Everyone,
I just brewed a batch on Sunday and had a rather odd issue.
My pre boil gravity @28ltrs was 1.044, after my boil I was left with 23.5 LTRs in the kettle and took a gravity reading once cooled as it was going into the fermenter, and my gravity was 1.044..... WTF?
My hyrdo was also reading 1.000 @ 20° in water so I know that is calibrated.
Anybody else has this issue?
I know it sounds impossible but that was exactly what the reading were

[steviebobs83]

Were both samples also at 20°C?

Sent from my SM-G973F using Tapatalk

[MattGuk]

Both samples were 20°c, I forgot to mention that lol

[orlando]

Erm, er, user error? Did the hydrometer possibly stick to the sides of the sample jar? Otherwise makes no sense, in other words, can't be. Sorry.

[london_lhr]

Were you drinking beer at the time of brewing??

[Eric]

Erm, er, user error? Did the hydrometer possibly stick to the sides of the sample jar? Otherwise makes no sense, in other words, can't be. Sorry.

Yes Orlando, but I've had a similar experience recently.

While measuring gravity and volume of kettle contents it appeared the total extracted had reduced between successve readings. Samples were taken from the kettle by pippette for measurement by a refractometer, but it was found that late runnings of low gravity and higher temperature when sparging mixed quite slowly with the kettle contents to give a false reading. Stirring the kettle contents rectified the seeming problem and I wonder if in this case if the pre boil reading was by tap from the bottom of the boiler and was higher than the mean value?

[keith1664]

I'm with Eric, I suggest your pre boil wort wasn't mixed so well.

[orlando]

I always take my preboil sample just as the wort is coming to the boil so have never seen that, as it is already evenly mixed that must be why.

[MattGuk]

I should have added that this is no sparge, also in a brewmonk with recirc going through the entire mash.
Maybe my wort wasn't mixed properly post boil, however I was whirlpooling ( sort of )

[WalesAles]

My hyrdo

Matt,
Perhaps you should have used a Hydro!

WA

So sorry, couldn`t resist!

[orlando]

I should have added that this is no sparge, also in a brewmonk with recirc going through the entire mash.
Maybe my wort wasn't mixed properly post boil, however I was whirlpooling ( sort of )

Suggests your preboil wort and post boil wort was mixed well so looks like we're back to a reading error.