I've been brewing 25+ years, and all-grain brewing about 3 years. I have an
intermittent problem with specific gravity readings and hope somebody can
help. On occasion, perhaps 25% of the time, my sweet liquor after sparging
will read very high--much higher than expected. Case in point: an ale mash
using about 10 lbs of Maris Otter malt in 2.5 gal water produced a liquor
reading 1.080! I repeated the reading twice, and all three times got the
same reading. Of course that affects the hop extraction, and I had no choice
but to hop according to that reading. After boiling, however, when the wort
was going into the fermenter, the s.g. read 1.048--about what I'd expect for
the amount of grain used. MOST of the time the readings for extracted liquor
and wort are within a very few points of one another, but on occasion I get
this huge differential. Does anybody have any ideas? I'd sure appreciate
some input! Thanks--

TJG