OG was WAY too low

How much extract did you use? Your OG comes entirely (almost) from your extract in an extract brew, none comes from specialty malts. This should have nothing to do with temps.

More water, bigger batch = more extract! Pitch it, ferment it, and drink it. Probably be a great session ale.

 

Given that it is an extract brew, it seem that one of two things could have happened: (1) you didn't use as much extract as you were supposed to or (2) you didn't correctly measure the gravity. This second case might have occurred as follows. If you did a partial boil and then added water to top off the fermenter, then you may not have mixed the final wort sufficiently. In this case you may have measured the gravity of the top layer of diluted wort.

 

How much water did you start with? What software/website did you use to calculate the OG?

Can you post the grainbill?

 

Did you correct for temperature when taking your gravity reading?

 

I'm guessing this was a 5 gallon batch?

 

Here you go. I remembered reading this a while ago. I think utahbeerdude pegged it.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/att...inal-gravity-reading-wrong-dont-panic-289735/

 

A few things-

Your gravity is correct, it was just measured incorrectly. I would guess the boiled portion of wort and the cold top-up portion did not fully mix. It's impossible to undershoot your gravity by 50% when using extract, but when doing a partial boil its super easy to read your gravity wrong. I've done it too, everybody has, no worries.

Second- if you have a ten gallon, or even eight gallon pot, do a full wort boil. Put 5 gallons of water in right off the bat and don't top up with cold water at the end. You don't want "fine" beer, you want great beer and partial boils will never create great beer.

Third- The beer will probably taste like beer, a little sweet and a little extract twangy, but beer nonetheless. Welcome to the world of brewing.

 

Is it a two gallon kit? what is your total volume at the start of fermentation?

 

“Is it a two gallon kit?” No, the instructions are just written for a partial boil.

Message to the OP, since you have a very large pot you have the option to add more water for a full boil (greater than 5 gallons). You just need to ensure that you have a heat source (a burner) that can adequately boil a large volume. You will also need a way to chill down your large volume; something like a wort chiller.

Cheers!

 

Ok, then start the batch with 5.5 gallons of water, by the time you add the malt and boil for an hour you will be down to 5.25 gallons.

Also, I woudl suggest grabbing a copy of Palmers "How to Brew" its a great book full of good info. A bit dry at times, but chock full of information.

 

You can also hook one up to a sink.

 

This was my first thought as well. Hot wort will throw off a gravity reading

 

This. I built my own in 15 minutes with items at home depot. Took longer to find the right size parts than to assemble it. (I'm stubborn and don't like to ask for help at stores)

 

Not to threadjack, but since the OP asked, I too am looking to just do full boils right off the bat instead of having to screw around with partials and potentially substandard beer, however, I also have a kit that calls for a partial. Is there a way to modify the kit/ingredients in order to make it a full boil, or is it just as simple as putting in 5 gallons of water initially instead 2? I would think that if you just arbitrarily upped the water by three gallons, you'd end up diluting it beyond the appropriate ratio of water/ingredients in the kit. Or is it a moot point since you wind up adding the water after the boil anyways?

EDIT: I think the question was answered in the time it took me to type this out. If I'm reading correctly, this is not an issue and as long as you have the burning capacity?