Beer Forum

I brewed a Kolsch kit this morning with a target OG of 1.048 and came up with an actual OG of 1.040. It's cooled, in the fermenter and I have pitched. If I add 1# of cane sugar will that raise my gravity up to around 1.048. I have been fiddling around with the numbers on ProMash and I think that will get me where I need to be. Does this make sense???

What if I used DME???


Hello???


Crickets?

It would bring up your gravity, but it will also dry out the finished beer a lot.
I sometimes do this with beers that already have a lot of body (a barleywine, recently) and I like the results.
Not sure if I'd worry about it in your case unless you're concerned about adding more kick to the kolsch.

Kirk

And yeah, DME (boiled to sanitize it) would be more likely what I'd do to adjust the gravity.

el_kirk wrote:It would bring up your gravity, but it will also dry out the finished beer a lot.
I sometimes do this with beers that already have a lot of body (a barleywine, recently) and I like the results.
Not sure if I'd worry about it in your case unless you're concerned about adding more kick to the kolsch.

Kirk

Not quite right. If the sugar is used in place of some of the dme it will dry it out. Instead this is used to supplement the gravity so there will not be near the dryness.

Wayne

If you did an extract kit and carefully watched your volumes, then chances are slim that you "missed your gravity".
Chances are pretty good that you didn't stir very well when you took your reading.

HTH-

I stirred the hell out of it, that's what I thought at first and I ended up taking three readings with my refractometer and two with my hydrometer. I don't think there was any problem with the kit. I think it got too low in the first place by topping up with too much water after racking to the fermenter. I have a couple of old marks on the fermenter that I used that I don't trust in regards to volume. When the fermenter is empty, I need to add some water and make more accurate marks. (Maybe I will do it sober this time! ). I boiled another 1.5# of DME and added it to the fermenter, then I got a reading of 1.060, higher than I wanted, but I don't think it will hurt.

Bugeater wrote:

el_kirk wrote:It would bring up your gravity, but it will also dry out the finished beer a lot.
I sometimes do this with beers that already have a lot of body (a barleywine, recently) and I like the results.
Not sure if I'd worry about it in your case unless you're concerned about adding more kick to the kolsch.

Kirk

Not quite right. If the sugar is used in place of some of the dme it will dry it out. Instead this is used to supplement the gravity so there will not be near the dryness.

Wayne

Yeah, it will dry it out compared to another beer that was done all malt to a gravity of 1048, but doesn't make it drier on its own.