Original gravity too low.

[Brewer #286456]

Brewing a 5 gallon Brewer's Best Kolsch extract kit. When adding water after cooling the wort I was in range of OG but only a total of 4 gallons in the fermenter. Is this typical? It looks like fermenting is finished now at 1.024. It's been the same reading for 4 days. It didn't get to 1.011-1.013 like the kit suggests. Looks like ABV will be low this batch.
Can you add a little dry malt while brewing with an extract kit like this to be sure to end up with proper OG and volume of beer?
Should I add a little more yeast or anything at this point to get FG lower? Does it work like that?

Thanks for any infoz.
Mike

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

When brewing extract kits, after you transfer the cooled wort to the fermentor you need to add water to the desired volume. In this case you needed to add an additional gallon of water. Basically your wort has all the sugars needed for a 5 gallon batch but your batch only 4 gallons. So the density of your wort, now beer, will be higher. I wouldn't do anything to "fix this"; because nothing is really broken. While the beer isn't "correct" per the recipe. It's still beer and still delicious!

 

[BarbarianBrewer]

Forgot to respond to your first sentence about reaching OG at the 4 gallon mark. It is very difficult to get a perfectly mixed solution when adding water and wort. You likely pulled your sample from an area where the SG was at the desired OG but, in other areas you were probably below OG. When I was doing extract I always topped off to 5.5 gallons in the fermentor. (The added 1/2 gallon was to account for trub at the bottom). I took gravity readings but they rarely matched the recipe's OG.

 

[Blues]

Forgot to respond to your first sentence about reaching OG at the 4 gallon mark. It is very difficult to get a perfectly mixed solution when adding water and wort. You likely pulled your sample from an area where the SG was at the desired OG but, in other areas you were probably below OG. When I was doing extract I always topped off to 5.5 gallons in the fermentor. (The added 1/2 gallon was to account for trub at the bottom). I took gravity readings but they rarely matched the recipe's OG.

That's good to know because I never hit the target OG

 

[Brewer #286456]

Thanks for the info my friend. I really appreciate you taking the time.

 

[Hawkbox]

A bit odd finishing gravity but probably nothing to worry about. You could add some water after the fact and it will bring your FG down.