Higher OG than expected ?

[Pepin The Short]

I recently picked up the BIAB upgrade thingy from Get`er Brewed ,which came with a choice of their all grain kits .Here is the kit I picked,mostly because it seemed like something nice for the spring .And it had some reviews posted .
http://www.geterbrewed.com/hoppy-american-pale-ale-all-grain-ingredient-kit/

It says the kit should come out round 5% .And the only change was about .4kg of Chateau Crystal
http://www.geterbrewed.com/chateau-crystal/
Which I had left over from steeping grains I`d used before . I know it is a stronger diastatic malt and helps with OG .

but when i checked the 20ltrs i  had chilled to 20c ,the hydrometer was reading 1064-65ish That`s almost 7% if US-05 does its thing and it ends round 1011ish .I was expecting it with any luck be just over the target OG ,because of the reduced volume .Or maybe a little under and id need to add some sugar if it was really low.

Was thinking ah maybe it`s the fact the wort itself was affecting the reading, due to all the partials & other bits which hadnt settled out yet.But tried it again a few minutes later and got the same reading from really clear wort .In the end I added 3.8 ltrs of pre boiled water to try and bring the OG down .It ended up round 1055-6ish at 24c ,or 1056 when you correct for the temp .

The only real change from a regular brew day ,was splitting it over two day`s .Night before clean and check everything that`s needed, got the water up to a few degrees above the mash temp and then added the grains slowly avoiding any clumps .Then it was wrapped up and left alone for 90min to do it`s thing ,bar giving it a stir every 30min or so .Once the time was up I removed the bag/grains & gathered any run off ,which I added back in before putting the lid back on and wrapping it up for the night .Next day ie yesterday I sanitized everything , boiled the wort for 60min adding the hops ad chilling as normal .

[armedcor]

Are those kits designed for 20 litres? I always thought those prepacked kits were for 23. Which could explain the high gravity? You could have just had great efficency.

Have you used that much crystal in a beer before? The recipe already has some and you've added nearly a pound on top of it. That's a huge amount for a pale and could be quite sickly

[Pepin The Short]

I think they are meant for 23ltrs . I only tested the OG at 20ltrs to avoid chucking an extra 3lters into an already weak wort . I would have been happy with the the 20ltrs at a decent OG to be honest man .
The extra malt i added was prob more like .35kg and pre milled so on it`s way out . Plus you can use up to 20% in your grain .Suppose it all depends on your taste .Plus this is my first try at BIAB so I`l revisit this kit in the near future and brew as is .This time round was more about just trying to make it through without any major cock ups 

[DEMPSEY]

either your liters are wrong of you got a higher extract efficiency from your mash. The mash efficiency of the recipe probably assumes a 70% extraction

[Pepin The Short]

I had nothing to do with the markings on the fermenting bucket so ....
Will do this kit again shortly as is and see what numbers i get .And I`l get that one round the same age to try v the one i have on at the mo .

Anyway I`l post a reply here in a bit ,once they have both been bottled up and conditioned for a while .

[armedcor]

It's been said before but  if those markings are a sticker... Or even if they've been printed on a lot of the time they can be waaaay out. Much better to check the markings than to take them on faith.

[Pepin The Short]

Na i have two the same and the markings seem spot on .And I have used them before .

[armedcor]

Alright. Just it's pretty common. As long as they're both the same at least there's some consistency. I remember myself and vermelho checked out one of his buckets one day and the thing was off by like 5 litres.

[Pepin The Short]

Can see how something like that could drive you up the wall very quick .And something I`l be sure to check when I get any new fermenters .

[Pepin The Short]

Got this APA bottled the other night .The final gravity was 1012 ,down from round 1055-6ish .
ABV is going to be in the 5.64% - 5.78% depending on which OG numbers are actually right .It`s pretty dry tasting with a little bit of malt in the background .Mind you I don`t drink a lot of APA`s ,so some people may find that a bit iffy but hey .
I filled a clear bottle just to see what the colour came out like .It will be the first I drink and it wont see the sun again til then .
https://flic.kr/p/D8xncG

Brewed the kit again on Thursday night ,so I`l get that bottled up in a week or so .