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Proffs

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Gday all. Put down a Coopers Pale Ale today and measured an OG of 1063! I quit smoking yesterday and just want to check I'm not going bonkers.

Recipe was:
1.7kg Coopers Pale ale kit
1.5kg Coopers LME
300g maltodextrin
300g dextrose

Boiled half the LME & dry ingredients with 30g Cascade hops for 60 minutes then added the rest of the cans. Rehydrated Us-05 yeast and pitched to 23L at 22 degrees. Plan on dry hopping another 30g cascade later on.

Based on an FG of 1015 ABV% would be around 6.5%!

Does this seem right? Also, I've got some moteuka, galaxy & POR hops in the freezer. Any suggestions for the dry hop after fermentation?

Cheers,
Proffs
 
That OG looks about right. Ianh's spreadsheet gives 1064 with those ingredients. It also suggests an expected final gravity of 1020 giving about 6.2% in the bottle. I'd recommend getting your ferment temp to about 18C if you can. 30g of Moteuka or Galaxy dry hopped will be yummy.

Oakers.
 
Thanks Oakers. Looks like I'll have to be careful with this one then. Might go a little bit of moteuka & galaxy in a week or so then.
 
Proffs, I'm just getting into this boiling with hops deal & interested in how much water one would use in your recipe ?

Cheers
DAC
 
DAC said:
Proffs, I'm just getting into this boiling with hops deal & interested in how much water one would use in your recipe ?

Cheers
DAC
Ah, I'm pretty sure it was 6 litres of water, with about half a can of Coopers Light Malt Extract boiled for an hour. Pretty easy. Chucked in the cascade at the halfway point. I just go by other people's recipes or what Danny, the owner of my brew shop recommends at this point; not quite ready to start working out my own IBU scales etc. :blink:
 
Oakers said:
That OG looks about right. Ianh's spreadsheet gives 1064 with those ingredients. It also suggests an expected final gravity of 1020 giving about 6.2% in the bottle. I'd recommend getting your ferment temp to about 18C if you can. 30g of Moteuka or Galaxy dry hopped will be yummy.

Oakers.
Hey Oakers I'm not sure I can agree here....a 1.7kg can of Coopers Australian Pale Ale, with a 1.5kg can of LME, 300gm dex and 300gm maltodextrin should only give about 1052 in 23 litres. You'd need another kilo nearly LME to get up to a 1064 OG.

By my calcs, this brew should have an OG of 1052, FG of around 1016 (final abv around 5.2% after bottling). Recipe looks good, although with that much LME i'd drop the maltodextrin altogether next time.

Proffs, did you mix the wort in your fermenter really well after topping up to 23 litres? I recall the first time I added water to a partial volume wort boil, I was getting really high OG readings from the tap sample...turned out the top up water was sitting on top of the higher density wort. Once I mixed it all together really well my OG reading went back to that expected. Just wondering if that might have happened to you here?
 
I don't bother checking the OG of extract brews. You know what's in there and there are plenty of calculators around. Unless you do a full boil I doubt the brew gets mixed properly, with the heavier stuff settling to the bottom thus giving a high OG reading. It's the FG you should worry about, and the beauty of the FG readings is that they contain alcohol so you can drink them :)
 
carniebrew said:
Hey Oakers I'm not sure I can agree here....a 1.7kg can of Coopers Australian Pale Ale, with a 1.5kg can of LME, 300gm dex and 300gm maltodextrin should only give about 1052 in 23 litres. You'd need another kilo nearly LME to get up to a 1064 OG.

By my calcs, this brew should have an OG of 1052, FG of around 1016 (final abv around 5.2% after bottling). Recipe looks good, although with that much LME i'd drop the maltodextrin altogether next time.
Good pick up carniebrew...I had fermenter volume on Ianh's spreadsheet set to 20L, hence the higher OG. With a fermenter volume of 23L I now get 1056 OG, and predicted FG of 1018 for 5.4% in the bottle....so not far of your figures.

Proffs - reading your hydro can be a bit of an art though I would't expect you to be that far out. As suggested above it could be wort mixing issues. Anyway don't stress, as long as you achieve a stable FG around 1018 over three consecutive days you should be good to bottle. Let us know how you get on.

Oakers.
 
Ok. that makes sense. I poured the cooled wort in the FV, from a little height, like tea. The same was done with 10L of cold water. Then topped up to with another 6L or so from the tap. So I didn't really stir it at all! I just took it for granted that the pouring had done the job for me. The things you don't think of!

Cheers,

Proffs
 
That'll be the culprit. Hopefully it'll all work out regardless, but in future give it a good thrashing before taking an OG reading, it'll help oxygenate the wort for better fermentation too. And consider chucking out that maltodextrin...without it you'd be looking at a 1047/1011 gravity brew with that recipe, which is a little more 'normal' for an Aussie Pale Ale than an FG of 1016.
 
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