Having issues hitting OG with first two all grain batches

I did my second all grain batch yesterday. I did 5 gallon recipe of bee cave breweries house ale by edwort.

7.2 lb 2 row
1.8 lb Vienna malt
.45 C10

Estimated OG of 1.052 with estimated efficiency of 75%

I hit 70% efficiency and, I was almost spot on with my volumes. My measured OG was 1.040. I was a full 10 points off my target gravity. I maybe had a little wort left in the brew pot but that wouldn't make much difference. I don't understand why my I am missing the OG when my efficiency is close to what I projected. Is beersmith off? I followed edworts recipe, using the same technique and beer software. Where am I going wrong?

Change the efficiency on your recipe in Beersmith to 70% and see what the projected OG is. Then double check the final volume - is the final volume in your Carboy the same as the batch size in Beersmith?

How are you calculating that you got 70% efficiency?

KingBrianI said:

How are you calculating that you got 70% efficiency?

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Of course that's the right question, KB!

Surly, go into your recipe in Beersmith, fill in your actual OG and double check that your final volume is correct. Then ask Beersmith to show your actual efficiency. That's the number you want to use in future batches.

Pappers_ said:

Of course that's the right question, KB!

Surly, go into your recipe in Beersmith, fill in your actual OG and double check that your final volume is correct. Then ask Beersmith to show your actual efficiency. That's the number you want to use in future batches.

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70% was indeed wrong, a friend calculated it out. Beersmith indicated efficiency of 66% so I wasn't that far off. Even with 66% efficiency it shows my OG at 1.046 or so. My volumes in beersmith are all correct. I've checked many times. Not sure why I'm things aren't matching up still.

SurlyBrew said:

70% was indeed wrong, a friend calculated it out. Beersmith indicated efficiency of 66% so I wasn't that far off. Even with 66% efficiency it shows my OG at 1.046 or so. My volumes in beersmith are all correct. I've checked many times. Not sure why I'm things aren't matching up still.

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I don't think you understand the concept of efficiency. If your final volume is right and your gravity is 1.040, you didn't hit 66% efficiency. You got whatever efficiency it takes to hit 1.040 OG at the volume you're at. Be that 55% or whatever.

KingBrianI said:

I don't think you understand the concept of efficiency. If your final volume is right and your gravity is 1.040, you didn't hit 66% efficiency. You got whatever efficiency it takes to hit 1.040 OG at the volume you're at. Be that 55% or whatever.

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Unless it was a mash issue. If he didn't get full conversion, poor crush with full kernels of grain or maybe a serious water chemistry issue. Ideally we need to know preboil OG, postboil OG and make sure volumes match.

I consistently undershot my OG when I first started doing AG, due to the crush & mill style my LHBS uses. It was extremely obvious that it was the crush once I started doing recipes that used more speciality hard grains, like wheat etc. Short answer for me until I got the numbers nailed down was to factor in adding an extra lb of base malt to account for the poor conversion.

Once I figured my actual BH efficiency I was able to correct my recipes and nail my targets. Now that I have my own mill, I'm having to repeat the process to re-calculate my BH efficiency so I can scale my recipes again.

Efficiency is measured by mathematical formula according to certain variables like, the amount of grains, grain type, adjuncts, pre-boil volume and your pre-boil gravity reading/temp. The OP may not understand the math behind it. Not enough info provided to determine cause. I suggest the OP try again and keep record of the next brew day. It is the only way to understand and refine your process. NEXT...

KingBrianI said:

I don't think you understand the concept of efficiency. If your final volume is right and your gravity is 1.040, you didn't hit 66% efficiency. You got whatever efficiency it takes to hit 1.040 OG at the volume you're at. Be that 55% or whatever.

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This may be somewhat true, I'm still new to all grain. But I've used two sources that said 65% efficiency. I didn't measure that incorrectly. There must be something else I'm not doing or doing wrong. I really want to double check my hydrometer, as well as information I've added into beersmith.

maddad said:

Efficiency is measured by mathematical formula according to certain variables like, the amount of grains, grain type, adjuncts, pre-boil volume and your pre-boil gravity reading/temp. The OP may not understand the math behind it. Not enough info provided to determine cause. I suggest the OP try again and keep record of the next brew day. It is the only way to understand and refine your process. NEXT...

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I can elaborate more when I get back to my house. I have all the measurements and volumes written down at home. I was hoping I could get some sound advice with the info i had given. Bare with me.

SurlyBrew said:

This may be somewhat true, I'm still new to all grain. But I've used two sources that said 65% efficiency. I didn't measure that incorrectly. There must be something else I'm not doing or doing wrong. I really want to double check my hydrometer, as well as information I've added into beersmith.

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please explain what you are doing to get the 65% number? Like what variables are you inputting to calculate that? Your overall efficiency is calculated from the potential extract of your grain bill, your wort gravity, and your wort volume. That is a fixed relationship, therefore, you can't have the wrong efficiency if you input the grain bill, wort gravity, and wort volume correctly.

Take each grain amount and multiply it by the "potential" gravity points (Beersmith or other software will give you this). Add those up and divide by the final kettle volume (after boil, including trub and hops). That is the points assuming 100% efficiency. Divide your measured OG points by this final number to get efficiency.

You ended with 40 gravity points (actual).

40/67.95 * 100% = 59% efficiency​

If you have 5g in the fermentor, but you left 1g in the boil kettle with the trub, hops, etc, then this efficiency jumps to 70% (actual volume would be 6g). Pay close attention to volumes and consider where you might have lost extract.

Beersmith will do all the math for you - plug in your actual numbers and it will tell you the efficiency. That is your actual, real efficiency. No inconsistency.

SurlyBrew said:

I can elaborate more when I get back to my house. I have all the measurements and volumes written down at home. I was hoping I could get some sound advice with the info i had given. Bare with me.

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Record keeping is key. I use a digital recorder and this has worked well for me.

I did the same recipe last night - hard to pass up a recipe thread that has that many replies.

Measuring your pre-boil gravity and knowing your boiloff rate is key to knowing how on track you are to the recipe, measuring post-boil gravity is more of a formality.

Make a measurement stick notched at 1/2 gallons for your boil kettle (I use 4 gauge solid copper wire from Home Depot bought by the foot).

The pre-boil gravity = (original gravity)*(end-of-boil volume)/(beginning-of-boil volume)

Example for Edwort's Haus Pale ale (OG = 1.051), (51)*(5/6) = 43, pre-boil gravity of 1.043 assuming 1 gallon/hour boiloff

I have the measurements and numbers written down at home. When I get out of work I will go into more detail and see if you fine folks could help me refine my process. I will say that I was rushed with this batch. Instead of taking an entire Saturday to make this beer, I rushed through it after work on a Friday.

Here we my go:
7.2lb 2 row
1.8 lb Vienna Malt
.45 C60

1.5 qts/lb mash thickness. Added water to grain, probably could have spent more time stirring the dough in. Mashed with 3.54 gallons of water at 152 F. Hit mash temp. 60 minute mash. Stirred once at 30 min (maybe should have stirred and check temp ever 15 min). Temp dropped maybe 4-5 F (maybe a problem) degrees through out 60 mins. Added 1.25 gallons mash out at 175 F. I was following bee cave breweries recipe and he called for adding 1.25 gallons before vorlaufing. After drainning 1st runnings I collected 3.4 gallons. Sparged with just over 3.5 gallons. I let it sit for 15-20 mins before recirculating (should I drain right away?). Vorlaufed and collected around 7.5 gallons of wort pre-boil with a gravity of around 1.030. I hit my pre-boil volume on the nose, but pre-boil gravity was definitely off. I boiled down to 6.25 gallons. Cooled it and strained the wort and collected 5 gallons. Maybe .25-50 gallons left in the bottom of the pot mixed with hop material. Maybe some loss of sugars here but shouldn't have been substantial. My OG after cooling was around 1.041, off by 10 points. My estimated efficiency was off by at least 10%. What else should/can I do to help my efficiency. I used northern brewers mill, crush looked to be satisfactory.

Deleted with clarifications for calculations and reposted further down.

How are you crushing your grain?

1. Did you check the gravity when cool AND adjusted for temperature?
2. Did you stir the wort before checking?
3. Have you calibrated your hydrometer?

It's important to know your measures are sound before doing anything.

What everyone early in this thread was saying is that you can use brewing software to figure out your actual efficiency. You adjust the efficiency number on a copy of the recipe you just did until it matches the actual S.G. you got. Then you go back to the recipe you are brewing, enter your actual efficiency, and up the grain bill until you get the S.G. the recipe is supposed to have.

You always adjust recipes for your own efficiency and specific hop alpha acids. It's not important what your efficiency is, it's important that you can repeat it. You do that by adjusting the grain bill to match your actual efficiency.

As far as getting better efficiency, there is a sticky here that is worth reading, but it's more important to get your existing process down. Then you can start working on things, one step at a time. If you don't have a repeatable process, you don't know whether a change worked or not.

Tkelly32 said:

How are you crushing your grain?

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I used the mill at northern brewer. Seemed to work well

RichBenn said:

1. Did you check the gravity when cool AND adjusted for temperature?
2. Did you stir the wort before checking?
3. Have you calibrated your hydrometer?

It's important to know your measures are sound before doing anything.

What everyone early in this thread was saying is that you can use brewing software to figure out your actual efficiency. You adjust the efficiency number on a copy of the recipe you just did until it matches the actual S.G. you got. Then you go back to the recipe you are brewing, enter your actual efficiency, and up the grain bill until you get the S.G. the recipe is supposed to have.

You always adjust recipes for your own efficiency and specific hop alpha acids. It's not important what your efficiency is, it's important that you can repeat it. You do that by adjusting the grain bill to match your actual efficiency.

As far as getting better efficiency, there is a sticky here that is worth reading, but it's more important to get your existing process down. Then you can start working on things, one step at a time. If you don't have a repeatable process, you don't know whether a change worked or not.

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I use beersmith. I assumed that I would achieve 70% efficiency, when I actually got much lower than. I'm still trying to figure out my average efficiency so I can adjust it for my system.

This is a recipe scaling issue:

7.2 lb 2-Row * 36 gravity points per pound per gallon = 259 points
1.8 lb Vienna * 37 gravity points per pound per gallon = 67 points
0.45 lb crystal malt * 34 gravity points per pound per gallon = 15 points

Total gravity points = 341 / 7.5 gal pre-boil volume = 45.5 gravity points (assuming 100% efficiency)

Actual mash efficiency = 30 gravity points measured pre-boil/45.5 gravity points = 66%

If the recipe was for 1.051 original gravity and you want 6.25 gallons after the boil and you expect 1.25 gal of evaporation, then you need to collect 7.5 gallons of runnings at 1.042 (51*6.25/7.5 = 42). If you assume the same 66% efficiency that you actually got, your grain bill should have been:

(42/30)*7.2 lb 2-Row = 10.08 lb
(42/30)*1.8 lb Vienna = 2.52 lb
(42/30)*0.45 lb crystal 60 malt = 0.63 lb

DSmith said:

This is a recipe scaling issue:

7.2 lb 2-Row * 36 gravity points per pound per gallon = 259 points
1.8 lb Vienna * 37 gravity points per pound per gallon = 67 points
0.45 lb crystal malt * 34 gravity points per pound per gallon = 15 points

Total gravity points = 341 / 7.5 gal pre-boil volume = 45.5 gravity points (assuming 100% efficiency)

Actual mash efficiency = 30 gravity points measured pre-boil/45.5 gravity points = 66%

If the recipe was for 1.051 original gravity and you want 6.25 gallons after the boil and you expect 1.25 gal of evaporation, then you need to collect 7.5 gallons of runnings at 1.042 (51*6.25/7.5 = 42). If you assume the same 66% efficiency that you actually got, your grain bill should have been:

(42/30)*7.2 lb 2-Row = 10.08 lb
(42/30)*1.8 lb Vienna = 2.52 lb
(42/30)*0.45 lb crystal 60 malt = 0.63 lb

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I plugged the grain bill that you suggested with 66% efficiency in beersmith and I get an OG of 1.062. Are you using a brewing software? What I don't get is that my efficiency was 66%, and with that efficiency plugged into beersmith for this beer should have given me an og of 1.046. I was still 5 points short of that, so either my hydrometer was off, or the sugars weren't mixed evenly when taking a reading. What else am I missing here? If my efficiency was 66% why was my OG not reflecting that.

I did the math by hand and checked it on ProMash - screenshow below.

I just downloaded Beersmith but got stuck with adjusting the mash efficiency/total efficiency. I typed in the 6.25 gal post boil volume, overwrote the preboil volume to 7.5 gal instead of editing the evaporation rate and transfer losses and entered the grain bill. I imagine if you can change the mash efficiency it should match the ProMash screenshot and hand calcs...

DSmith said:

I did the math by hand and checked it on ProMash - screenshow below.

I just downloaded Beersmith but got stuck with adjusting the mash efficiency/total efficiency. I typed in the 6.25 gal post boil volume, overwrote the preboil volume to 7.5 gal instead of editing the evaporation rate and transfer losses and entered the grain bill. I imagine if you can change the mash efficiency it should match the ProMash screenshot and hand calcs...

View attachment 76536

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Aha! I figured out why this isn't matching up with mine. You have the batch size set to 6.25 gallons. I am making a 5 gallon batch. Pre-boil volumes is 7.5, boil down to 6.25, and then with loss to trub and chilling, I get 5 gallons in the fermenter. Is this still a scaling issue?

It is a scaling issue. If you measure 6.25 gallons in your boil kettle at the end of the boil, your concentration of sugar is final (post boil gravity). Yes, the trub takes up some volume and there's a cooling density effect, but those are small differences. If you loose 1.25 gallons of wort from the end of the boil to the fermenter, you still need to plan for making 6.25 gallons in the boil kettle and whatever is lost is beer at the same gravity that could have been fermented.

Your original grain bill would have been about right if you had about 5 gallons after your 60 minute boil.

I chill in the boil kettle and dump everything into the fermenter and siphon the beer off the trub after about 4 weeks. It's about 0.25 gallon loss from boil kettle to bottles. I use all the same size of bottle, know 11.8 oz is my typical bottle fill (measured once by filled weight - empty weight) and can multiple the number of bottles to check the batch size and losses.

DSmith said:

It is a scaling issue. If you measure 6.25 gallons in your boil kettle at the end of the boil, your concentration of sugar is final (post boil gravity). Yes, the trub takes up some volume and there's a cooling density effect, but those are small differences. If you loose 1.25 gallons of wort from the end of the boil to the fermenter, you still need to plan for making 6.25 gallons in the boil kettle and whatever is lost is beer at the same gravity that could have been fermented.

Your original grain bill would have been about right if you had about 5 gallons after your 60 minute boil.

I chill in the boil kettle and dump everything into the fermenter and siphon the beer off the trub after about 4 weeks.

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So should I be plugging batch size as 6.25 instead of 5? Even though I am making a 5 gallon batch in the end?

Just realized we're about 10 miles apart, brewing the same beer.

There are equipment settings in Beersmith that can be used to account for 1.25 gallons of loss post boil. If you have that set properly you can plan for 5 gallon batches.

I use ProMash and plan recipes to be the same volumes as the post-boil volume in the kettle. There are similar settings in ProMash but I know all those options are 0.

IMHO, you should really check your hydrometer. Beersmith told me that my second AG batch (Trippel) was going to be 1.085 and I got 1.055. I fretted about for several hours engaging in all sorts of re-mashing tomfoolery and what not. Then I called my brew store and asked their opinion. They told me to dunk it in my filtered tap water (just a faucet Pur filter) to see how well it was calibrated. It told me that my water's gravity was a rather ridiculous 0.982! Assuming that hydrometers are linear (which is reasonable considering the numbers on them are linear) that means my real gravity was 1.072. As it turns out, the other 0.012 discrepancy came from sparging with too much water, which threw off my volumes.

Anyway, long story short, CHECK YOUR HYDROMETER!

ElCapitan said:

IMHO, you should really check your hydrometer. Beersmith told me that my second AG batch (Trippel) was going to be 1.085 and I got 1.055. I fretted about for several hours engaging in all sorts of re-mashing tomfoolery and what not. Then I called my brew store and asked their opinion. They told me to dunk it in my filtered tap water (just a faucet Pur filter) to see how well it was calibrated. It told me that my water's gravity was a rather ridiculous 0.982! Assuming that hydrometers are linear (which is reasonable considering the numbers on them are linear) that means my real gravity was 1.072. As it turns out, the other 0.012 discrepancy came from sparging with too much water, which threw off my volumes.

Anyway, long story short, CHECK YOUR HYDROMETER!

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That's good advice.

Recipes with sugar added to the boil (many Trippels have that) can really throw you off. The gravity contribution from sugar in ProMash is not affected by mash efficiency (that's correct, can check the math by hand). But, many recipes give pre-boil gravity with the sugar included. You have to subtract those gravity points (lb of sugar * 46 gravity points per lb per gallon / pre boil volume) to get the target pre-boil gravity for the mashed grain only. ProMash doesn't take the sugar out of the pre-boil gravity, and it can typically be added at the end of the boil...I have no idea how Beersmith handles that.

If the the pre-boil volume and gravity is in-line with the recipe, the beer is on-track to turn out per the recipe. It's a good spot to take measurements.