OG turned out lower than I planned - here's what I did. help

so the recipe is:

8 pounds pilsner malt
4 oz crystal malt 40 Lovibond
4 oz special B
12 oz Wheat malt

The mash was 153, but for some reason my calc was off and I had to add 1.25 gallons of hot water to bring the temp up. But I got it to 153.

The gravity from the initial runnings was 1.047 at 120' which as far as I can tell is about 1.058. I ended at about 1.010 with 6.5 gals for the boil.

Any help here would be great. The OG after boil and cooling was 1.041, this is low. I thought I should have had it in the 1060 range...

Any ideas? Not sure other info would be helpful. This was my second all-grain batch. Still figuring out the rig.

thanks

With a FG of 1.041, assuming 5 gallons in the pot at the end (or was your boil end volume more?) you hit 62% efficiency...

How much did you mash with? Sparge temp? Time you mashed for?

With that grain bill, you would have needed to hit 90% efficiency (5 gallon boil-end volume) in order to get an OG of 1.060...

Did you run the recipe through software?? If not, I would suggest using some for the next batch...

If you want to boost the OG of this batch, assuming you haven't pitched the yeast in yet, you could boil up 1-2# of extra light DME and add it in... IF you've not added the yeast yet, pull out about 1 gallon or wort (if it's in the primary) and boil the DME for 5-10 minutes before cooling it back down and adding it to the rest. It could mess up your hop bill though. Without the full recipe, it's hard to say how that will impact the brew.

at 9.25 lbs grain, i'd expect an og of 1.047 or so for 5 gallons. 1.041 is low, yes, so something does need to be done to increase your efficiency. i'd not end up at 1.010 on the sparge for 6.5g on a 5g total. i'd stop at 5.7 gallons, but that's just my setup and my system

So I am the idiot here. Read the recipe right!!! There was supposed to be 8oz of cane sugar. My guess is that would have had some effect, not sure how much but...

I think I have efficiency issues that I will need to handle separately, but for this batch, to try and salvage from here, could I boil several cups of water with can sugar until disolved, cool to 75 and pitch in?

I have already had the yeast pitched for about 30 hours. I know this could be bad for it, but I already have the time and money into the batch... so a loss is a loss either way

If you just want to add the sugar because it was missed before, you could boil it in some water, cool, then add it to fermentor. As previously mentioned, will alter hop profile, however if it was supposed to be there in the first place, should be okay, right? I know on Brew strong they talk about adding sugar to the fermentor a day or two after having started the fermentation to get the sugar added for higher alcohol beers (e.g., triple, IIPA, etc). Just a few loss of an hour sleep ramblings. Hope this makes sense and is helpful.

I'm a bit confused, but here's my 2 cents. My home made calculator (which gives me consistency but may be non scientific) shows this grain bill giving me 1.048 at 5 gallons post boil, no waste (wet hops, trub) with 72% efficiency. I always account for 5.5 gal so I can get 5 in the carboy.

Also you say your initial runnings were 1.047? I guess you added sparge water before any run off? Okay, but with batch sparging you'll increase efficiency by draining the tun before adding sparge water.

Braukaiser.com has a handy chart which gives the first run off gravity for a range of strike water ratios. So if you mash in at 1.25 qts/lb your first runnings would be 1.096, if you get full mash conversion. 1.047 would imply a mash in ratio aruond 2.75 qts/ lb.

I would keep good notes, increase your grist a bit for hitting the target gravity, and brew a few more times to figure your overall efficiency. That number will let you adjust your grain bill to hit the desired gravity consistently. 65% efficiency is not bad, it's just what you had this batch. Try to streamline your procedure and stick with it. I bet you'll end up near 70%.

Thanks for all the notes. I have an efficiency issue. This was my 2nd all grain batch so I am still figuring out how to calculate the efficiency, as well as get it right for a given beer.

I also made the mistake of not adding the sugar to the boil in the beginning. The recipe calls for it, and I just missed it somehow. I assume that 8oz of sugar won't add a ton to the OG but I could see it having an impact, but this is ignorance speaking.

Thanks for all the notes. I need to dry run my rig a couple more times and understand how everything works. I am running a 19 gal hot water heater for my HTL, a igloo for my mash tun and keggle. pics at http://promontorybrew.com

My last question is any thoughts on how much water to 8oz of sugar? thanks so much for all the help. This batch has been a battle from the beginning so this error fits right in.

This is a total guess, maybe a pint or just enough to get it mixed into a simple sugar solution & cool, then add to fermentor.

initial runnings was 1.047 at 120

Click to expand...

Does that bit mean you checked the gravity with a hydrometer at 120F?

Don't do that. You simply cannot trust hydrometer readings that far out of their operating range, no matter what the temperature adjustment calculators say.

To do it right you really ought to get a refractometer for checking the gravity of your mash/sparge runnings, unless you have the capability to cool a hydrometer sample down to the 60F range in a reasonable amount of time.


Also, your initial runnings are NOT going to be the same gravity as the total volume of your first runnings + sparge(s). Sparge the full boil volume, THEN check the gravity pre-boil.

If you are high on your expected pre-boil gravity then you can always add some water, or boil off less volume. If you are low then you can add some extract or boil longer to hit a lower volume at the target gravity.
Or, you can just live with the different gravity and see how it turns out.