I did a all grain brew yesterday. I noticed that my OG was way low. Is their a simple way to boost it up while in the primary? Thanks
You could add more fermentables to the primary such as malt extract. You could also add sugars (e.g., table sugar) if you are so inclined. Cheers!
That would indeed encourage the 'mixing' process. That could likely work as well I have no personal experience in adding sugar to the primary so my 'vote' would be the conservative approach of making a simple sugar. Just bear in mind that the resulting beer will be more on the dry side since sugar is more fermentable than the equivalent amount of malt extract. This not necessarily a 'bad' thing but I just wanted to set expectations a bit. Cheers!
Add 5 - 8% sugar based on the recipe. Boil@ 1/2 cup of water and dissolve the sugar in it. Let cool and add it into the fermenter at high krausen, around day 2.
You could just add the sugar directly. The yeast will find it. If you are concerned about risk of infection, boil up a syrup with the smallest amount of water needed to dissolve the sugar.
Well, wild yeast and bacteria don't grow in dry sugar. So unless the sugar has been sitting open for a while, I'd call the risk very low, but not quite 0. I've added dry sugar (both corn sugar and table sugar) to primaries a few times before, with no problems.
The sugar itself is no great concern for any 'bad things' (after all we do consume that stuff) but the measuring equipment, funnel, etc. could be. I'm just trying to impart the sense of awareness not to overlook proper sanitation to anyone who reads this thread who might be a new homebrewer.
