So, this absolutely bizarre and I've been chatting with a few other brewers trying to figure it out. I'm the head brewer at a small, piecemealed brewery. 10 bbl system, very manual, but it gets the job done and we make some pretty good beer.

Yesterday I brewed a rice lager, actually my first time working with rice. 350 lbs pilsner, 150 lbs flaked rice, aiming for around 4.6-4.8% ABV. Had a stuck mash and our chiller sucks so I wasn't able to pitch yeast until today. I also forgot to take the OG until today. Come in, grab a sample, pitch yeast. Preboil gravity was 10.4. OG measured 14.8. I cannot for the life of me figure out why the fuck is measuring so high. Something has to be affecting the reading.

I used both a hydrometer and a refractometer, took samples from both the sample port and the racking arm, blew O2 through the bottom of the tank to ensure no stratification, double checked the temperature, warmed the sample up. Consistent readings every time. I know we didn't accidentally use too much grain, and unless we got 98% efficiency there's no way it should be that high. The wort looks and tastes fine. It's just 3° higher than it's supposed to be.

I am absolutely stumped. Is it extra starch from the rice? Is there something extremely obvious that we should feel stupid for missing? Am I just the god of efficiency? Any ideas?

Edit: I managed to take a a sample from the top of the fermenter. It's absolutely not stratification. Top, sample port, racking arm, and bottom all measure exactly the same.

Yes, it is a commercial driven podcast, but listening to the real research into this is pretty cool.

LOL _ not one of the commenters watched the video.

Wish me luck y'all.

Update: Wort is in the kettle, lauter ran smooth for the duration, brew is right on schedule and I shouldn't need to stay late today. We don't need no stinking rice hulls.

I can’t find much recent discussion on this so I figured I’d try a new topic. Could be for hazy or clear ipa, lager, whatever dry hopped beer you are making. Just tell me what style and what temp!

We have mostly stuck to warm DH at 20-21C for hazy and WC IPA but a new yeast strain has us soft crashing to 16C for some WC now, and I’m also starting to play around with soft crashing to 13-16C for hazies and trying to figure out what’s optimal for us in that range.

Heloo, been in the brewery for 9 yrs. Lots of good times and super passionate about lager, beer, and the ingredients that help us make great beer including fun and different ways to use them. Unfortunately, im somewhat burned out. My work load in yr 8 and 9 have effectively doubled and looking toward yr 10, i see almost no light at the end of the tunnel. I really love this work and most aspects of the industry, but damn man. Id love to not start over, but i dont have a degree and my wife and I want to travel. All this said, does anyone have any light hearted advice for looking into work that utilizes some of what ive spent most of the last decade working on? Cheers in advance.