Home Brew Forum

I did my 4th AG brew yesterday (Fiddlers Elbow Clone off this site) and everything for once went really smoothly,in terms of the actual brewing.
However i realised last night as i checked the SG before pitching the yeast that i had made a fundamentle mistake, when i sparged, i sparged untill the SG was about 40 on the hydrometer, then stopped sparging, i now realise that i forgot to make the adjustment for the tempreture (Doh), which was about 70 Deg C so i ended up by my calculation that i`ve only achieved about 55% efficiency.
My question is, is there anyway i can make adjustments by adding sugar to get it back upto 4.5% ABV or even 4% ABV would be fine, or is there anything else i can do to bring up the Alcohol Volume.
I have 22 litres in the FV and the SG before the yeast went in was 29, any help would be fantastic as i`ve been looking forward to brewing this one for a couple of weeks, and a complete senior moment may have ruined it, i know it may still taste ok but it would be like drinking pop

If I were you I'd rescue it with some fairly concentrated malt extract solution (boiled and cooled - you'll need to do the maths to work out what you need to get the gravity up, remembering to compensate for the extra volume from the extract solution). Try and be careful as you add it. You want to stir it in as best as possible, but try to avoid any aeration as this will probably oxidise the beer at this stage.

Hope this helps!

Could i just mash some more of my own malt, as i wont be able to get hold of any extract until the end of the week.
The problem i would have though is calculating the quantity needed i`m fairly green at this.

well i'm not helping you clear it up.

haz66 wrote:Could i just mash some more of my own malt, as i wont be able to get hold of any extract until the end of the week.
The problem i would have though is calculating the quantity needed i`m fairly green at this.

I don't think that'll work unless you boil it and boil it and boil it to get the volume right down, otherwise you won't be increasing the gravity enough as you'll be adding too much liquid at a fairly ordinary gravity. I think corn sugar is probably the closest thing you're going to get to extract, but I'll let someone else confirm this.

dissolve a kilo of brewing sugar or spraymalt in a pan of boiling water. Cool then add it. Not got a clue how much stronger it'll be but it'll be stronger than what your heading for now.

EDIT.... oh its already been mentioned.

Cheers guys, i`ll add some brewing sugar and leave it at that, i`ve got plenty of malt so i`ll brew it again either this weekend or next.