Bad Brew day

Well today was my first all grain batch. I did a wheat beer with 4.5 lbs of wheat and 5 lbs of 2 row which was more than called for i did everything that i thought i was supposed to do my grain temp was a little high at first. my target was 152 and it took me 15min to get it down from 160 I stired a bit, idont know if you are supposed to.

i have the toilet supply line setup in my mash tun i mashed in with 4-4.5 gal and i batch sparged with 4gallons (beer smith said around there) I got 38% eff... my target og was 1.054 and i had 1.030, quite depressing after all the money i spent and time to get setup. Any ideas?

Efficiency can vary greatly when you don't have pretty exact measurements.

If you overshoot your temp add a quart of cool water and stir. Make sure you have a good and well calibrated thermometer. Sparging once or twice can really help. I just made a volume measuring stick for my kettle and it really helped by making sure I didn't have too high a volume.

As you're figuring out what it is try and keep the same source for grains so that you can cut out the grain crush. That said with that high of a wheat grain bill and no stuck sparge difficulties perhaps the crush was a little course.

Can't tell you how important it is to calibrate your equipment. Spend a day to get exact volumes, temperature, gravity readings, boil off rates down. There is a margin for error in every measuring tool and it can really add up.

What is a stuck sparge exactly? the liquid not being able to go through? Does a stuck sparge happen often with 50% wheat?

A stuck sparge is when you can't get the sparge (think rinse) water through the grain bed and/or straining media (manifold, false bottom, or hose braid). It happens more frequently with wheat I understand.

drummerboyas157 said:

What is a stuck sparge exactly? the liquid not being able to go through? Does a stuck sparge happen often with 50% wheat?

Click to expand...

A stuck sparge is basically when your mash tun stop letting liquid come out when liquid is still in it. Wheat has been known to cause sparge issues.

I had a "fairly stuck sparge" today.....never actually stopped running off but the runoff was really slow, I collected a half a gallon less than anticipated, and I couldn't keep the "fill side" of the tubing going to the pump solid. My culprits were that I was brewing a batch with 40 pounds of grain and a 1 quart per pound of grain water to grist ratio (manufacturer of the kettle recommends no more than 27 pounds of grain and a 1.5 water to grist ratio) and that half way through milling my 40 pounds of grain I discovered the my rollers were only 22mm apart!!!! Half of my grain was very close to flour!

You should use rice hulls when brewing with wheat. That really helps avoiding stuck sparges.

If i miss my mark that much (around .025 G) will it taste much different or just be lower abv?

Is that a Pre Boil or Post Boil Gravity reading?

I've had a couple batches that were below gravity by 20-30 points. They were both hop monsters but didn't turn out bad per se but weren't the same I'm sure. That said I think having that much grain still added to the mouth feel even if it didn't give me all the sugars. Until you get your process down you may want to keep around some dme just in case, plus you can use it for starters.

Try to be more detailed in your process, not "about this much, close to that much". Also, the more precise details you can give us will help with your issues as well. Brewing is largely a math equation.

Use rice-hulls next time for sure. I'm wondering also if you denatured some of your enzymes by being at 160 for 15 minutes. That's a long time to be that high. How hot was your strike water?

May have been addressed already but what temp did you take your gravity reading at? Hydrometers are accurate at 60*f.

That could account for some lost points.

Well i had 1.032 post boil at around 65-70 degrees. I used the beersmith calcs for my strike water but it was way off, i warmed up my mash tun with some hot water before I dont know if that was the problem? Anyway it said to put the water in a 167 to get it down to 152 when i add the grains... it only went to 163 but i was able to drop it to 160 then down to 154 with some cool water and stirring, But adding that water then messes up the sparge and stuff doesnt it? Then I cant sparge with as much.

I did a lot of estimating. I had 8 gallons of water handy and used 7.5 during the whole process and came out around 4.5 gals after boil. But I was using 2.5 gal jugs and when it said put 3gal in for 60 min mash i used 1 whole one and estimated the .5gal on the other then it said 4.5gal sparge so i used the rest of what i had. which should of been 4.5.

I crushed my grain at the store and saw someone on the fourms say you should run it through twice but the store guy said thats not a good idea.

Thanks for the comments Hopefully it still turns out alright...i can hope to get 3%abv out of it at most haha

BS is going to be going off of estimates based on your mash tun weight, thermal weight, tun temperature and grain temperature. Warming up the tun first will make you overshoot for sure. Also if you have to add water during the mash it'll be fine for the sparge, just boil the appropriate amount of time to reach your desired pre boil volume.

So you are saying if i have like 2 quarts to much to just boil it for another 30 min (assuming thats what it takes to burn off the 2 quarts?)

Exactly. Helps to know your evaporation rate and be able to measure the actual volume. Beer Smith will list for you estimates but it is best to test them. In your example you'd do a 90 minute boil and add your first batch of hops 30 minutes in. conversely if you come in 2 quarts short you could just add it to the kettle.

In beersmith, there is a check box for adjusting temperature based on your equipment. Uncheck this if you are going to prewarm your equipment. The temperture given with the check box unchecked is the temperature that your water needs to be just prior to adding your grains. Checked, the program give the temperature of the stike water compensating for a cold mash tun.

I have a 10 gallon round coleman cooler. I will heat my water 3-4 degrees above the stike temperature (not adjusted for equipment) and add it to my igloo cooler and cover for 10 minutes. It's usually within 1 deg of stike temp and I add grains, stir and check temp. Adjust with hot or cold water as required. My cooler will typically drop 1-2 degrees over the 60 minutes of mash time.

For 10 lbs of grain I'll would use 3.5 gallons of 167 deg water. Adding it to the cooler will get me down to 163 deg and adding the grain will end up at 152-154 deg F. Fully drain and add another 3.5 gallons of 185 deg water will get you to about 165-168 deg f mashout for 10 minutes. Drain.

Make sure you have a calibrated temperature gauge or thermometer.

I would guess that either your hydrometer is not reading correctly or you did not get good conversion during your mash.

I'm guessing the 163 down to 154 that took 15 minutes to achieve ended up denaturing many enzymes and that affected your efficiency. Also, the double crush is subjective. You have to look at the grains and make sure ALL are cracked open. If not (due to the settings on the LHBS mill), then you'd run it back through.

Thanks for the information. Has anyone else ever made a brew that had a OG of 1.03 and FG of 1.01? Considering it was supposed to be 1.05 OG. Should I bother to do what I was going to wait a while and keg it? or just try again?

At this point, I would say keg it and see what happens. It may give you more information on things to improve on you next batch.

Might still make a nice summer ale.