Forgot to take hydrometer reading

Originally posted by BigBeer45

Originally posted by JoeMcPhee

Originally posted by fiulijn

Originally posted by Christian
Say that it is whatever you expected it to be and don’t worry. Nobody will try to prove you wrong

Unless you live in Ontario: I just learned that every imported beer has to be analyzed in a lab and ABV recalculated

Yup - welcome to bureaucracy-land.

Is Ontario is checking a bottle of every imported beer to verify and recalculate the ABV?

it’s not clear if they check every beer or every bottle

Originally posted by keanex
You could do reverse readings by taking the yeast attenuation % and doing some quick math. I believe you could just multiply the FG by the attenuation % and it will give you a rough OG.

There’s no way to know the attenuation without two points of reference. So unless he runs his beer on a DMA and gets both residual extract and alcohol measurements, he will never be able to know OG at this point. Attenuation levels are just way to variable to go by any published guidelines.

Originally posted by joeneugs


Haha, yeah I’d dump the batch and start over.

Seriously though, don’t worry about it. My gut says that it would be hard for a beer to drop 13 gravity points in just 11 hours, but it’s definitely possible. Especially if you pitched a large healthy starter. Also warmer temps would kick start fermentation quicker. A lot of factors can influence the pace of fermentation so there’s really no way of knowing for sure. The bottom line is, not knowing the OG of the beer will not effect the quality of the brew.

Originally posted by HornyDevil
You’re fucked.

If it’s really, really important, you can send the finished beer into a lab for analysis, and then OG/FG become irrelevant. And they can give you actual IBUs at the same time.

Originally posted by JStax
My actual reading now is 1.061.

You can be pretty sure that it used to be higher than that.

Taking into account a lag period that could last several hours to half a day when yeast is first pitched I don’t see there being that great a drop in OG. I’m guessing that you have used an ale yeast and not a turbo yeast. My everyday ale I often brew without using a hydrometer for OG. No crime in it, just pick it up for the next batch!!!

Well, its already in the fermenter and yeast is pitched, so no use worrying about it now. Just let it be and live with what you got. Or buy a refractometer, take a reading along with a hydrometer reading and find a website that will figure the OG for you.