Messed up my first all grain somehow

I just got finished with my first all grain batch and it was a failure. I'm going to go ahead and ferment it to see what happens by my OG was 1.030 and it should have been 1.045. It's barely going to be beer. I mashed in at 148 for 75 minutes. It's a Hefe and I wanted a light body. I hit the mash temp dead on. The only thing that I can think that might have happened is that when I finished sparging I was about a gallon short of original boil volume. Beer Smith told me to use 11.26 quarts mash do a 4.5 gallons fly sparge. I was shooting for 6.25 original boil volume and I ended up with about 5.25 gallons after I sparged so I sparged another gallon. Was that a mistake?

As a side note, I don't have refractometer and from what I gather you can't use the hydrometer on hot wort. So I have no Idea what my pre-boil gravity was.

Any thoughts on what I could have done wrong?

You have several things here. You are right that you can't use a hydro on hot wort, but a single cup of wort will cool pretty quickly if put in the freezer. Pull a sample, pop in the freezer and come back in a few minutes to check it.

About the bigger sparge, if you don't have your preboil volume, you either sparge more or end up with less post boil volume. Your choices are sparge more or top off post boil. It is probably better for you to sparge more.

As for your gravity problem, you had low efficiency. This means you extracted far less sugar than you should have. Most of the time this is because of the crush. If you can't crush your own grain yet, try having the LHBS crush it twice. This will give you a few more points--most of the time. Better is to invest in a crusher and do it yourself. Th pH of the liquor is another issue, but for a new brewer this is often too much to bite off. Work on crush.

If you can't do any of this your only option is really to either use more grain for a batch or keep some DME on hand in case you need a gravity bump from a low efficiency mash.

If you make starters keep a few lbs of DME on hand for that quick starter or a quick bump to your gravity.

Your batch will probably also be more bitter because gravity impacts hop utilization. Lower gravity more bitterness.

cluckk said:

As for your gravity problem, you had low efficiency. This means you extracted far less sugar than you should have. Most of the time this is because of the crush. If you can't crush your own grain yet, try having the LHBS crush it twice. This will give you a few more points--most of the time. Better is to invest in a crusher and do it yourself. Th pH of the liquor is another issue, but for a new brewer this is often too much to bite off. Work on crush.

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Your point about the pH may be my problem. I'm on a well. The water is hard and it has a high pH, above 8. I know this because I also have an aquarium and check the pH.

On the plus side I also have an RO system as part of my aquarium set up. Would it make sense to look at trying to treat a batch of RO water for my next attempt. Also wonder if maybe just trying some bottled water might work.

RO is a good choice, but if you don't have a good crush it won't help a lot.

I've brewed several batches with bottled water too. I use our local liquid limestone (it looks like water but has few of its other qualities). I filter it and treat with lactic acid to adjust the pH.

Some styles I dilute with RO and adjust.

cluckk said:

You are right that you can't use a hydro on hot wort, but a single cup of wort will cool pretty quickly if put in the freezer. Pull a sample, pop in the freezer and come back in a few minutes to check it.
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Without meaning to hijack this thread, I have a question that might could help both of us.

I have been collecting my hydro samples over the course of the brew session in case I need to make on the fly changes. Some hot, some cold, some right before or after boiling. It was my belief that I could plug the temperature of the wort sample into the Brewsmith hydrometer calculator and it would convert to the correct reading.

Should I be changing this practice?

Sorry for the hijack question,

You're fine. But you don't want to try using wort that is too hot. You only need to bring it down enough to be safe if you are going to convert. But it sounde like the OP didn't have BrewSmith or another way to calculate. I figured recommending a way to cool quickly was easier than trying to say how to calculate the difference.

I just checked my own copy of Brew Smith and wort at 168 would read 1.012 if it was actually 1.037. That is a pretty big adjustment. I think it is bet to cool it down some and then calculate the rest.

What Cluckk said 100%. Focus on your crush first. While PH can have an impact on your efficiency, I seriously doubt I could cause you to miss by that much. I say hat because on my water (municipal with a high hardness) I never really had issues with efficiency before I started treating my water. Off flavors, yes. Get your crush right and you will solve many issues.

OK next time I get my grains I'll run them through twice. It just seems strange to me. I know people get their grains and crush from my LHBS all the time and I was off by SO much.

The thing is you don't know how much they may be bumping up their grain bills. You can use more grain or work on it to extract more. Besides, crushing twice at the LHBS is only going to help for a few percentage points. The best is to grind it yourself and go finer.

I just plugged my numbers into BeerSmith. I got 48% efficiency. If I was running a brewery I'd be out of business.

I've had those batches. Not many, and long ago, but I've had them.

I just found this article.

http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/07/04/5-ways-to-improve-your-all-grain-beer-efficiency/

Your grain crush suggestion was right on top. It would also appear that I sparged way too quickly. I was probably done in less than 10 minutes. Live and learn I guess. I'll try again in a few weeks.