Possible efficiency concern ??

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SAS98M

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I did an AG pale ale batch today-8# 2 row,2#vienna,1/2 # crystal 10L-doughed in at 160-hit mash temp right on at 154 with 3.5 gals water,sat for an hour,vorloufed and x-fered to keggle,batch sparged twice with 2 gals/10 mins each time at 170,added 1oz cascade at 1hour,.5oz at 30,.25 and whirlflock at 15 and .25 at 5mins. 20 min cool and only ended up with 1.035 OG ?? Is this correct or am I dooing something wrong ? I did a batch of this a month or so ago and it turned out fantastic-I didn't deviate a bit from what was done then I just think the OG's a bit low----What do you all think ?? I'm curious. Shane
 
Yeah Brewsmith shows you as having 46% efficiency. Do you get your grains crushed for you or do you mill it yourself. Most likely if nothing else changed, it's the crush.


Dan
 
How many gallons did you end up with post boil?

Willsellout makes a good point too, I got a TERRIBLE crush from northernbrewer one time and got about the same efficiency as you just did. I added some DME to bring it up to par, but man, I was pissed at NB. Did you notice your mash seemed thinner than usual? I noticed that when I had a bad crush.
 
Well lets see, Judging by the side of my 6 gal.carboy-I believe I ended up with just over 5 gals.
Just after adding the second sparge the mash did appear thin/watered down....I never gave it a thought; I don't have any DME/LME on hand-guess I should've..
I'm in the process of building my own crusher-based on Yuri's pictures-My father-in-law works at a big machine shop just around the corner from me so acquiring the parts shouldn't be that tough;assy. should be interesting though. Shane
 
WormBoy said:
Can you guys elaborate on that crush problem? A too-fine crush may reduce OG? I'm a noob so this is new to me.
You can't extract the sugars from grains unless the husks are broken open. A bad crush in either direction could make your brew day go south. Not enough of a crush and you get poor extraction, too fine of a crush and you could get a stuck sparge/mash.


Dan
 
Wow, that is low. My LHBS always has a great crush, I am lucky, but I check it before I leave the store too. My AG Heffe this weekend was 81%, and my sparge got a little cold.

Pol
 
Not much I can do when it takes 9 days for NB to get my grain to me. I didn't notice how bad the crush was until I was mashing. Poored it in and all the whole grains were floating to the top :(
 
seefresh said:
Not much I can do when it takes 9 days for NB to get my grain to me. I didn't notice how bad the crush was until I was mashing. Poored it in and all the whole grains were floating to the top :(

Why don't you buy a mill and stock up on grains?


Dan
 
Ale update-A little over 24hrs. since pitching and the Nottingham yeast likes what it's been fed....Very vigerous ferment going on with an inch of krausen ,it appears to have foamed up into the carboy neck and no further. All is goin'well at this time.
I will address the grain crush prior to the next ale batch,I do have a batch of wheat grains pre-ground in a bag now(ground by the same LHBS) waiting to be done; How can I tell if the grind is satisfactory ?
 
You will have to take out a good sample (whole kernels sink and flousr rises to the top) and examine the crush. Are there whole grains that are not cracked? Are there hulls and such that are completely pulverized? You have to reach in and take out a good representative sample and sift through it by hand and examine the kernels.

Pol

:cross:
 
My last two brew sessions I got about a 50% effeciency, down from my average 60%. I have a brand new CrankandStein waiting for my next batch and I hope to see some improvement. Reading these forums have led me to believe I'm doing most everything right, it is the lack of husk seperation that has caused me to be in the low region.
That being said, I just tapped out a keg last night of some "low effeciency" IPA, and I thought it was one of the tastier beers I have made. I have the second keg of that batch now on tap. Perhaps once in awhile I can get a crappy crush and try to replicate what I once thought was going to be a disappointment.;)
 
Willsellout said:
Why don't you buy a mill and stock up on grains?


Dan


I did, immediately after that bad experience we drove to a HBS in Amsterdam (4 hours away) but we spent the weekend there too, so wasn't just for my grains. Got tons of grains and a crusher for about 130 Euro, which is like ... mm.. 170ish dollars?
 
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