Is a hydrometer of any use if you didnt take a reading at the start of

[QldKev]

Nah, I plugged them into BeerSmith.

Based on a 5 litre batch, it says your OG should be around 1.032

Interesting to cross-reference what ekul says comes from Brewmate, quite a difference in the estimate
(wikianswers said 1 cup of honey weighs 345 grams, so I used 110 grams for the recipe. I would have thought this would give me a larger estimate)

Did you change your system losses for the smaller batch?

 

[philistine]

Well, the first kit I made - the summer citrus blonde, tastes f****n awesome. I sampled a bit before bottling and even tho it was flat and unconditioned, its was bloody good. Im getting impatient waiting for the bottles to condition so I can drink it........

The second kit - the honey bomb wheat, which is the brew that got me to start this post.. well... thats another story... Ive actually just finished bottling it despite realising that my hydrometer is clearly not as good as it needds to be (how the f**k am I supposed to determine readings beyond the 2nd decimal place?????? I can clearly read 1.010 or 1.020 or 1.030 etc etc. but any smaller that would be just a super freak guess that I could only make if I had super freak vision... ZAP).
Anyway, bottled it and tasted some... and it tastes pretty yukky... I think there's a chance that the 2hot days we had in melbourne this week have ruined it.. it tasted kinda like yeasty metho...

 

[manticle]

You don't need to read further than 1.010 or whatever.

Hot weather can give metho, yeast will drop out. See how it is in a few weeks.

 

[wynnum1]

Final Gravity Hydrometer Precisely read your finishing gravities in beer with this narrow-range, highly accurate hydrometer. The scale range is only .990-1.020, but the individual gradients are extra large allowing for an easy read.

 

[mr_wibble]

Did you change your system losses for the smaller batch?

Ah, no. That'd be it.

EDIT: I formed it into a proper recipe, guessed the hops, guessed the yeast, guessed the style.


BeerSmith 2 Recipe Printout - http://www.beersmith.com
Recipe: 5L Honey Extract
Brewer: Mr Wibble
Asst Brewer:
Style: Standard/Ordinary Bitter
TYPE: Extract
Taste: (30.0)

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Boil Size: 5.00 l
Post Boil Volume: 5.00 l
Batch Size (fermenter): 5.00 l
Bottling Volume: 3.49 l
Estimated OG: 1.039 SG
Estimated Color: 5.4 SRM
Estimated IBU: 29.9 IBUs
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Est Mash Efficiency: 0.0 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
0.65 kg Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 1 85.0 %
5.00 g Pride of Ringwood [9.00 %] - Boil 60.0 m Hop 2 16.9 IBUs
5.00 g Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 3 13.0 IBUs
5.00 g Galaxy [14.00 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 4 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg Safale American (DCL/Fermentis #US-05) Yeast 5 -
0.11 kg Honey (1.0 SRM) Sugar 6 15.0 %

 

[philistine]

awesome, thanks dude!
Its a shame that the batch seems to have spoiled, probably form the hot days we had monday-tuesday....
Looks like this weekend's project is gonna be "DIY temp controlled fermenter chamber" AKA "****** old fridge thats been tinkered with". Already started scouring thru gumtree and ebay

I'll also have to get bootcamp up and running on my mac (its a windows emulator) so I can get a copy of brew mate, it looks like a pretty handy bit of kit