First brew day complete, and I have some questions.

What was the pre-boil volume?

 

Did you take your reading when you had only 1.5 gallons? Your recipe is for 5 gallons, so after adding your top-off water is when you should take the OG reading. If you did tale the measurement when you had 5 gallons, then that difference is so great that is has to be an error in reading the scale on your hydrometer. There doesn't seem to be any other way this could happen.

 

I suspect your wort was not thoroughly mixed with your top off water, and you got a lesser portion of top off water in your hydrometer sample.

 

Either post #4 or #6 is right -- there is no way you could have made a mistake of this magnitude. I'm thinking #6 is right. The wort was not well mixed. The denser solution was at the bottom, and this is what came out of the spigot.

Aside: the instrument used to check gravity is a hydrometer, not hygrometer. Hygrometer measures humidity in air. Hydrometer measures density of (typically) aqueous mixtures. Not a big deal -- we all make mistakes, with language, with brewing, etc.

Aside 2: Welcome to homebrewing!

 

This is probably not the best advice. Most homebrewers let the primary fermentation take at least two weeks. It is common to skip the secondary altogether. Here's an excellent read on what's going on in your bucket and how to manage the schedule:
http://www.morebeer.com/articles/conditioning

My other suggestion is to not be in a hurry to drink your beer. Don't be like a horny college student in a ***** house . . . rather, take your time and and allow the beer to reach its potential. Six weeks from brew date is a good time to open your first beer.

 

It will mix and ferment without intervention.

When brewing extract, your OG is pretty much always going to be within a reasonable range of the predicted OG, unless your total volume is off by more than a quart.

Your hydrometer reading was incorrect.

 

Difficult to know for sure, but my guess is yes. The extended time in the primary is really to allow the yeast to reduce the unfavorable by-products (acetaldehyde, diacetyl, fusel alcohols, etc) of fermentation. Racking off your yeast too quickly may leave these nasties behind. If you have temp control, after 4-5 days you may want to raise your wort/beer temp a couple of degrees. This keeps the yeast in the ballgame to clean up what they left behind. If you read and understand the linked article you'll be way ahead of the game.

Remember, you are not going to be drinking this beer for six weeks, so rushing is almost never called for. The real beauty of homebrewing is having a pipeline in place: one day to brew, while bottling another batch, while still another batch is being chilled to drink.

 

I would say no worries at all. As soon as fermentation gets going the turnover circulation gets very high. It should be fully mixed in 24-36 hrs so. Take a new reading as soon as your out of the lag and fermentation starts rolling. You will likely find your Gravity is right back down where you should be. Can you monitor your C02 production ( airlock) or are you open fermenting the primary?
The only other problem I see is that if your yeast pitch also got down to the unmixed high gravity area it could be killed by the super high sugar content. It would certainly could do no harm in giving it a really good stir, take a new reading and make sure everything is back on track.

 

Perfect! Sounds like all is well and your off to a great first start .

 

One of the nice things about fermenting in a carboy is that you get to see how much those yeasties will churn your wort while they are having dinner. It looks like a blender gone crazy.

 

Based on Beersmith:
7# LME for a 1.75G batch-size ==> 1.150
7# LME for a 5.50G batch-size ==> 1.048

 

Yes, the yeast seem to do better at the proper constant temp. With a ferm fridge you are shooting to keep the swing less than 1°, this is approaching the accuracy of the thermo, but it's the goal.

A bigger problem is fermentation is an exothermic reaction, i.e. it produces heat. Yep, your primary is a mini space heater and the temp will rise with the degree of fermentation taking place. See the linked article on Conditioning - Temp Factors. Routinely I see a 4 - 6° rise in wort temp over ambient air temp. This of course drops off as fermentation slows down.

So if your ambient is 73 the wort probably touched the upper 70s . . . this is high enough it may cause problems. US-05 is a workhorse, lots of brewers use it and it can give excellent results. Here are your ideal temps from Fermentis:
http://www.fermentis.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/SFA_US05.pdf
The mfg recommends 59-71 as the ideal range, you'll find many brewers post here they shoot for the middle of this range (64-65). Remember, this is temp of wort (not the surrounding air). These mid-60s temps seem to eliminate the nasty by-products discussed in the Conditioning article. Ironically, letting the temp rise for conditioning helps reduce those problems so don't attempt to lower into the mid-60s now.

You can search this forum for some good ideas on temp control and measuring wort temp. A themo taped to your primary covered in insulation will approximate your wort temp, a thermowell is even better. Some combination of ice baths or evaporative coolers are a po-man's approach to temp control. A dedicated ferm fridge (or two) will solve the problem.