December Homebrewing

I brewed the Averagely Perfect Stout yesterday. Brewing went well. A couple points low on OG and both my Willamette and Chinook were much lower AA than used in the recipe. Increased the total hops to 6oz from 3.9oz in the recipe and still had a few less theoretical IBUs, which I guess is fine with my lower OG. Used Nottingham because that's what I had on hand. Also, didn't toast the oats as most people didn't think it added anything.

What didn't go smoothly was my first use of my mill. The old, hand me down corded drill I had went kaput as soon as I put a load on it and my battery powered drill couldn't cut it. Ran over to home depot and bought a 1/2" corded drill (luckily had gift cards from Christmas). Set that up and still couldn't get the mill going and almost broke the drill, mill and my wrist in various attempts. Realized I probably had the gap set too tight (I BIAB), loosened it up and it went fine from there. I did bend the drive shaft slightly, but the rollers are true. Hopefully it doesn't wear down prematurely now.

 

I just brewed my first batch of beer this past Saturday- it was an extract kit called Chocolate Covered Beaver Nutz from Midwest. I am a complete noob with my only knowledge coming from scouring a few homebrew forums. That being said, the brew day went really well. my OG was also a little low - I came in at 1.062 or so, where the recipe called for an OG of 1.070.

At the time, I didn't really know what to do so I capped the fermenter and let it do its thing.

My question now is- how much will missing that OG mark impact my beer?

Bonus question- the beer is 2 days into fermentation, and is a lot more of a brown color than I had expected. I thought it would be a very very dark brown, but is more along the lines of a milk chocolate bar color. Does the color of the beer darken at all in the process?

Thanks all! Excited to finally brew a batch of beer and start this crazy hobby.

 

Since your OG was lower than expected the alcohol content of your beer will be lower assuming you hit your predicted FG. This impacts other aspects of the beer as well, like mouthfeel and body.

Look at your recipe closely and your process to figure out what happened to cause this. Theoretically it should be hard to screw up the OG of an extract brew as long as the quantities of fermentables used and volume are exact. Perhaps your volume is higher than expected?

Don't get too hung up on the color in the fermenter. It can look drastically different from wort to finished beer. In general though, finished beer in the fermenter looks a lot darker to me than in the glass. It's the bulk effect. You'll have a much better idea of final color when you see the beer passing through the racking cane after fermentation is complete.

 

Yeast in suspension give a dark beer that "chocolate bar" look and texture as well.

 

Makes sense, I thought it was just my mind playing tricks, but as the beer has become more active it seems to have become even lighter.

Regarding the OG, I have never read a hydrometer or pulled a sample before, so I'm hoping I messed that up somehow. I followed the recipe to a T and while it called to top off at 5 gal, I was under at about 4.5.

Thanks guys!

 

@YoDudeguy with this being your first batch I would recommend checking out www.howtobrew.com and give it a read. Also, consider your first few brews the opportunity to get to know the process. If this was extract then the only things that could throw you off would be not getting all the extract into the kettle, your final volume may be off, your hydrometer may not be accurate, or you may not be familiar with how to use it. If you were to post the recipe, your process, and your expected vs actual gravity readings we could help you pinpoint your discrepancy. That all being said, welcome to home brewing, get ready to learn a lot.

 

You actually had less volume, which theoretically should have given you a higher OG.

Assuming you got all of the extract into the kettle, you are probably either reading the hyrdrometer wrong or the hydrometer needs calibrated. Can't second howtobrew.com more.

 

Thanks dudes, slow day back at work... I'm reading up on howtobrew.com now!

 

In 1961 it was zero, if I recall. It had rice at creation in the late 1800's, and then rice was put back in in the 80's I believe. There was a fairly long stretch after prohibition when it was all-malt.