Yesterday I made a new brew a clone of Brakspear Bitter. I am trying to brew this at 3.8%. However, the first gravity reading was low at 1.032 instead of 1.035. A low original gravity seems to be happening a lot lately. I don't know the reason. My measurements may be wrong somehow? Using too much water? Losing some of the malt sugars by boiling in only 18 litres of water instead of 34 litres. Maybe, I just don't know. I think that for the next brew I will up the dried malt content and see if that solves the problem.
Boiled 2100 grams of dried malt extract in 18 litres of water. Added 45 grams of challenger hops at the start of the boil. Added 295 grams of caster sugar after 45 minutes and 4 grams of Irish moss after 80 minutes. Turned off the boiler after 90 minutes and allowed about hour for the trub to settle and the temperature to drop and added 9 grams of styrian golding hops. The wort was then run off into the fermenting vessel which contained 4 litres of bottled mineral water. Made the total volume up to 20 litres with bottled mineral water and placed in the fermenting cupboard. Safale s-04 yeast was reactivated with a little previously boiled water and added to the FV and given a good stir. The airlock was bubbling away nicely this morning. So another successful brew. However, as always a slight cock-up. I had forgotten to replace the hop strainer. So I placed a fine mesh stainless strainer into two muslin bags and ran the wort through that into the FV. There is always something! I keep blaming my age but I am beginning to believe that goblins are at the root of my brewing mishaps. I will set up a goblin trap and try and catch the little buggers.
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