OG over shot by few point?

[homebrewnewb]

I am understandably a little confused here.
I was brewing on Sat, and admittedly i fell over a few times, i am pretty sure i did not hit my head. wood plus water plus slope incline = slippery. I even had my good boots on i swear.

Anyway, i was cubing up and i took a reading to add to the notes and while it was cold at around 10C the refractometer i was using was calibrated with H20 and is ATC, my reading was somewhere just under 1.070, 1.068 if i recall correctly.
I will be re-reading the re-checking the refractometer when i get home.

Needless to say i am a little shocked.

I haven't pitched yet and the cubes are still in situ, i was doing some final calcs and i have a very healthy 34/70 starter going, BF reckons i might be looking at 7%, which is a little high for want i am after.

Anyone got any tips on getting it down to a more reasonable 5% i would assume i would need to boil and hop some water to bring the OG down?

If you need any more info let me know, happy to try almost any ideas.
Don't worry about it and enjoy your imperial lager is also an acceptable outcome but least preferred.
I could pitch an ale, but i already got this starter going...

 

[mtb]

If I may recommend - and if it's possible - test against your refractometer with a hydrometer. I have a refractometer from eBay and it is WAY off despite me calibrating it against H20

 

[homebrewnewb]

i shall report back.

 

[Lionman]

what was the recipe?

The easiest way to reduce the ABV is to dilute the wort before you pitch.

 

[homebrewnewb]

yeah, that's what i would like to do, but not sure how to go about it, not sure i could just throw distilled water into it, pretty sure it would need be hopped again. It's Dr S' Golden Ale grain bill, just need to check the notes when i get home and will post back.

Other things i am thinking of.
Usually i use Beersmith but don't have access at the moment, so using Brewer'sFriend, so maybe the efficiency has got me.
Also, i cubed into DJ golden syrup cubes, but i wouldn't have thought it would have lifted it that much, surely not.

 

[Droopy Brew]

I reckon most likely that your refrac is fragged. To go from an expected 1.05 or thereabouts to 1.07 would require a brewhouse efficiency above 100%.
If you got the expected volume of wort I almost guarantee a hydrometer will tell a different story.

If not? Well being the DSGA recipe I would use an ale yeast, dry hop it hard and turn out a nice RyeIPA

 

[Lionman]

Brewers Friend online calc for all grain defaults brewhouse efficiency to 35%. I don't know why, seems really low, but if you try to build a recipe with that set, your will over shot by a country mile.

What was your brew volume? For 20L, you'd need to use around 6KG of grain give or take to hit 1.068ish. Should have been about 4KG total for that style of beer. Did a sneaky extra kg or 2 of malt end up win the tun?

I would hit it with a hop tea and make it an IPA.

Check grav with hydrometer first. Pays to take 3-4 different samples after a good stir when a refractometer. The sample size is so small that its easier to pick up false readings from stratification etc.

 

[homebrewnewb]

So, i think i have found the culprit.
Thanks all for input!

I believe i measured the wort to warm, it was a bit of spillover on the cube at the time, i thought it would be cool enough but i guess not possibly due to heat capacity in the cube.

I will still try and aim for hydro calibration just be sure, but i have re-measured @ 20C last night and we looking a much more session able 1.055.

Full disclosure, i did not remember cleaning up after brew day and was bit surprised when i walked out expecting to be scrubbing pots only found the HLT drying, so too many 's i reckon, thank again all.