# Hops influence on O.G?



## Snow (22/1/03)

Can anyone tell me what influence, if at all, the presence of hop particles in the hydrometer tube have on an SG reading? I took a reading of my batch last night, straight after racking to the fermenter. The hops were still in suspension, so my hydrometer tube had plenty floating around when I took the reading. The O.G is higher than I predicted, so I was wondering if that might have been a result of the hops.

Cheers - Steve.


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## RegBadgery (22/1/03)

Interesting question, Steve - couple of posts from rec.crafts.brewing. Anyone have any other data?

cheers
reg


From: M&L Davenport ([email protected])
Subject: Re: O.G. and Hops

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Newsgroups: rec.crafts.brewing
Date: 2001-04-20 20:38:18 PST

> I use hop pellets with my kit beers. When I transfer the wort to the
> primary I strain out the hops. I notice there is some fine sediment of hops
> that makes it through the strainer. Won't this increase the O.G. ?
> Thanks in advance.
> -Tom

Simply put, no...particulate matter in water/wort/fluid will NOT have an
effect on the gravity of the fluid. Only truely DISSOLVED matter...in
our case, sugars...will raise the gravity.

Broken down hop pellets in your sample might, however, make it tougher
to read the scale, but that's pretty minor.

If it bothers you a lot, try either just leaving the hops in the
fermenter and rack off of the hops and the yeast after a week or so or
use hop bags.

If you use the bags and are picky about your EXACT bittering rate, I've
found that adding about 10% more pellets will take care of your lost
utilitisation.

I do it both ways, depending on how lazy I'm feeling on brew day and
haven't noticed any difference in the final product.

Oh...if you leave the hops in the ferment, you'll want to brew a little
more than normal...only about a quart to a half gallon, because you will
end up losing some in the racking.


Luck

Don't Worry...Brew Hoppy
Mike

Message 3 in thread
From: dcole100 ([email protected])
Subject: Re: O.G. and Hops

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Newsgroups: rec.crafts.brewing
Date: 2001-04-22 03:17:10 PST

Floaters or sinkers will not affect the O.G. of wort. Example: If you are
sitting in a bathtub full of water, does the water get any thicker? No. But
if you dissolve 10 pounds of sugar, you will increase the O.G. of the
bathwater. However, make sure that you let the hydrometer sample settle
before measuring. Anything that clings to the hydrometer will pull down its
measured O.G.

Good luck,
Dan Cole


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## Snow (22/1/03)

Thanks, Reg - they are interesting opinions and make sense. I guess I'll put my raised O.G. down to my dodgy scales giving me an incorrect weight of my crystal malt.


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## PostModern (22/1/03)

While I agree that hops in suspension would not affect the gravity of the wort, I think it would be quite easy to test. Take some tap water sufficient to give 2 readings in your hydrometer sample tube. Test one batch plain and steep some hops in the other. Measure the second batch and compare results. Perhaps compounds leached out of the hops would effect gravity, so it might be advisable to filter out some spent hops... sounds like too much work, though.

:chug:


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