I don't use a bag for my hops when I boil and I don't filter them when I dump into my primary. I just clear through secondary fermentation.

If my wort sample that I take my OG reading with has some hop chunks in it, will it give me a false (high) reading due to them being "solids"?

My last couple of batches have had a higher than targeted gravity readings. I was thinking that it may be additional sugars from my partial mashing too.

So in theory, since OG is a measurement of the density of the liquid, having particles in it shouldn't alter your gravity as they're not part of the liquid. Even knowing this, I still thought it would affect it myself. So I decided to try to check it myself (literally 5 mins ago). I filled a graduated cylinder with water and measured the OG (1.000 thankfully). Then I added some pepper to the water (simulate small floaties) and rechecked the OG. Still 1.000, maybe 1.001, but no higher than 1.002. I thought maybe I didn't put in enough, so I poured in a about 2 tsp worth more (way more floaties than you should have), and checked it again. Still the same OG. Then to better simulate hop floaties I added some oregano and checked it again. By now I had a little too much stuff on the surface to read it properly, but definitely no significant change.

So unless you have extremely bouyant hops that are pushing up the hydrometer, I'm thinking you have excess sugars. Hope this helps

I appreciate all your effort to answer my question. I guess my partial mashing efficiency has been higher than expected.

miguelito wrote:I appreciate all your effort to answer my question. I guess my partial mashing efficiency has been higher than expected.

Just out of curiosity, how good of efficiency are you getting?

I typically load my recipes in Beer Smith as extract to get my estimated values. This first time I put in a recipe as a partial mash the default was set at 75% efficiency and my actual OG was lower than my target. I was a bit disappointed. I posted my frustration and someone in the forum commented that stove top partial mash efficiency was most likely closer to 65%.

My last recipe was an imperial stout and I entered as an extract. I did partial mash my grains and came in at 1.106 OG. Anyways, to answer your question, I switched the recipe to partial grain to see what the values would be at 75% efficiency and the estimated OG was 1.107. So, it looks like 75% unless I'm talking out of my butt.

From this point forward I will likely enter my recipes as partial grain to get better accuracy on my values since it seems I got the hang of partial mashing now.