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Anomalous OG readings

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SilentJimbo

Worker Bee
Registered Member
Oct 9, 2012
159
5
18
Hampshire, UK
In some confusion about the OG readings for a braggot I'm making. The recipe is as follows:

20oz Greek Honey
4oz Light Crystal Malt
0.5 Hops
Water to 1 (Imperial) Gallon

The malt was steeped for 30mins, hops then boiled for 20mins, cooled, added to honey, topped up to 1 gallon with water.

According to my calculations, this should result in an OG of 1.041 (1.037 from the honey, and an extra 4 points from the malt) however, I'm getting a reading of 1.048 (at 22C). I made 3 batches and the reading came out the same for each. I appreciate that various factors mean things never come out exactly as expected, but I can't figure out how I would get quite this difference.

I'm fairly confident my ingredient measurements aren't significantly far off, and have done a couple of tests to confirm the accuracy of my hydrometer. Whilst honey can vary in sugar content, this discrepency would require the honey to be around 95% sugar, which seems unlikely. I've had it in the past where the honey hasn't been fully disolved when taking the reading, but that's resulted in lower than expected readings.

It hardly matters in the grand scheme of things, but any ideas as to what might be the cause here?
 
And indeed it turns out the gallon mark on the jug is in fact only 4.2L.
Which means the honey would need to be about 86% sugar... which is plausible.
 
SilentJimbo said:
And indeed it turns out the gallon mark on the jug is in fact only 4.2L.
Which means the honey would need to be about 86% sugar... which is plausible.
Click to expand...
Don't forget, notwithstanding the weighs and measures legislation, unless it is or comes from a world of legally required volume measurements (petrol, booze, etc) then ther often will be a margin for error.

Only something from the excise or scientific world is likely to have some sort of accredited accuracy.......and that often looks back toward money/taxation.......

cheap(er) hydrometers, refractometers etc. If you want OCD level accuracy, its gonna cost, whereas you get the numbers/maths for free.......
 
What is the name of the company that made the Light Crystal Malt? One malt from company A may be higher O.G. than company B. There should be information on there website about the O.G.
 
SilentJimbo said:
And indeed it turns out the gallon mark on the jug is in fact only 4.2L.
Click to expand...

Hrmm when I get around it, I'm gonna double check the volumes on my demi-johns. I was racking from one 5l DJ into another the other day and I was half a pint short. I wasn't expecting it and at short notice ended up topping up with water. One was the single handed style, the other the double.
 
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