Cooper's Lager OG Question

[Yt-Toe]

I made made a batch of Cooper's Lager yesterday and I am pretty sure that I did wrong with it. I added a pound of table sugar, along with the extract and topped it off at the 5 gallon point. My OG was 1.062 when, if I understand it correctly, it should have been around 1.047. I also pitched at 80 degrees and have the fermentation temp set at 75 degrees. There still, 15 hrs later, no movement in the fermentor. Should I top the carboy off with water to lower the OG or leave it alone and see how it ferments out? Also, Should I raise the wort temp to the low 80's until some action starts?

Thanks

[BeaverBarber]

...There still, 15 hrs later, no movement in the fermentor.

I don't think it's time to hit the panic button yet. What kind of yeast are you using? 75 is a really warm fermentation temperature. If that's ambient temp, then the internal temp of your beer will be about 82-85 degrees at high krausen. I'd move the beer to a cooler area of the house.

[Ozwald]

I added a pound of table sugar, along with the extract and topped it off at the 5 gallon point. My OG was 1.062 when, if I understand it correctly, it should have been around 1.047.

How was that 5 gallon point measured? Did you fill a carboy a gallon at a time & make some marks or are you relying on the printed measurements on a bucket? If it's some variation on the 2nd method, those buckets are rarely correct. The gravity is the amount of sugars dissolved in a known volume, so if your volume is off it will affect your gravity reading by a handful of points. Secondly, is your thermometer calibrated & correct, is your hydrometer calibrated at the calibrated temperature & was your wort sample at that calibration temperature when you took the gravity reading? Every one of these things can throw your reading off by a few points & if you add them all together, you could be reading significantly off from what your sample actually is. You may have still missed your gravity, but possibly not by as much as you think.

I also pitched at 80 degrees and have the fermentation temp set at 75 degrees. There still, 15 hrs later, no movement in the fermentor. Should I top the carboy off with water to lower the OG or leave it alone and see how it ferments out? Also, Should I raise the wort temp to the low 80's until some action starts?

If you're doing this as a lager, with lager yeast, that is a pretty warm pitching temperature. What kind of yeast did you pitch & how much? Did you do a starter? If it was dried yeast, did you rehydrate or proof it? Lager's require a very large pitch compared to ales & cracking a tube of White Labs without doing anything else isn't going to give you enough cells. You'll likely get a few off flavors & an extremely long lag before fermentation starts. If it was dry yeast, rehydrating is always a good idea, proofing is never a good idea.

All in all, I wouldn't top it off & just let it go as is. 15 hours really isn't that uncommon, especially with certain yeasts & techniques. If it hasn't kicked after the 36 hour mark, then I'd start to have a bit more concern. Let us know a bit more about your process & the yeast you used; there might be something in there that could help us get you a better answer.

[spiderwrangler]

If your gravity is that far off in an extract batch, it's usually an issue of something being measured incorrectly... the volume is a big culprit, as well as measuring from an incompletely mixed batch. If you pulled a heavy part, it may give you an artificially high reading.

[BDawg]

My bet is that you didn't stir it up enough when he took the measurement.
Simple error, no harm done. The yeasties will mix everything up once they get rocking.

Give it more time -- RDWHAHB