veritas524
Well-Known Member
Or my hydrometer sucks... getting some distilled water today to calibrate it, hopefully it's way off. I would greatly appreciate some constructive criticism/troubleshooting.
Here is the recipe
9# 2-row
1# crystal 80
.75# munich
Equipment:
15 gallon brew kettle
10 gallon rubbermaid round cooler w/ SS braided hose
Beersmith
Anyways, I did my first AG recipe about three weeks ago. A few friends (all extract brewers) came over and helped. As it turns out, we ended up getting 60% efficiency. Some temps were missed, some other things didn't go exactly as planned and I attributed the poor efficiency to three All grain virgins being intoxicated.
Fast forward to yesterday. I decided to give it another shot, this time by myself so I didn't have the well intentioned collaboration that I had the previous time. I was brewing an amber, mashed at 1.25 qt/lb and was aiming for 154. Doughed in at 165, waited five minutes and my temp was 152... not a problem as I had two quarts of preheated water on the stove to adjust with. Checked the temp 5 minutes after adjusting and I hit 154 dead on the nuts. After the hour was up, I drained the MLT into a bucket and collected 3 gallons and added it to my kettle. I did two batch sparges of a hair over two gallons each to bring my pre-boil volume to just a little over 7 gallons. I took a sample of the wort and tossed it in the freezer to chill it down to 60. When the test jar was at 60 degrees, I took the SG and got 1.033 (right where I wanted to be pre-boil assuming I was going to get 60%). Disappointed I figured it wasn't the end of the world and resumed my boil. All said and done, I finished my boil with an OG of 1.040 which is WAY under where it should have been even for 60%.
I'm sitting here scratching my head as to what is going wrong. I have done my homework and read every all grain thread I can get my hands on. I have read Bobby M's all grain primers, howtobrew, etc... I tasted the grains after the last sparge and there was no residual sweetness left in them whatsoever. The only thing I can possibly think of is that I'm draining my MLT too fast or my hydrometer is fubar'd. As far as draining fast... I was under the impression that sparging slow was only for fly sparging. Should I open my ball valve while draining just to a little over a trickle? Another thing. I do get my grains crushed at my LHBS, but it appears to me as if it is crushed fine enough. There are no intact hulls and a good amount of flour. I asked the owner of the shop if he felt the crush was fine enough for All Grain and he said that 95% of his all grain brewers have absolutely no issue's with their crush.
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated, 52% efficiency is really starting to frustrate me.
Here is the recipe
9# 2-row
1# crystal 80
.75# munich
Equipment:
15 gallon brew kettle
10 gallon rubbermaid round cooler w/ SS braided hose
Beersmith
Anyways, I did my first AG recipe about three weeks ago. A few friends (all extract brewers) came over and helped. As it turns out, we ended up getting 60% efficiency. Some temps were missed, some other things didn't go exactly as planned and I attributed the poor efficiency to three All grain virgins being intoxicated.
Fast forward to yesterday. I decided to give it another shot, this time by myself so I didn't have the well intentioned collaboration that I had the previous time. I was brewing an amber, mashed at 1.25 qt/lb and was aiming for 154. Doughed in at 165, waited five minutes and my temp was 152... not a problem as I had two quarts of preheated water on the stove to adjust with. Checked the temp 5 minutes after adjusting and I hit 154 dead on the nuts. After the hour was up, I drained the MLT into a bucket and collected 3 gallons and added it to my kettle. I did two batch sparges of a hair over two gallons each to bring my pre-boil volume to just a little over 7 gallons. I took a sample of the wort and tossed it in the freezer to chill it down to 60. When the test jar was at 60 degrees, I took the SG and got 1.033 (right where I wanted to be pre-boil assuming I was going to get 60%). Disappointed I figured it wasn't the end of the world and resumed my boil. All said and done, I finished my boil with an OG of 1.040 which is WAY under where it should have been even for 60%.
I'm sitting here scratching my head as to what is going wrong. I have done my homework and read every all grain thread I can get my hands on. I have read Bobby M's all grain primers, howtobrew, etc... I tasted the grains after the last sparge and there was no residual sweetness left in them whatsoever. The only thing I can possibly think of is that I'm draining my MLT too fast or my hydrometer is fubar'd. As far as draining fast... I was under the impression that sparging slow was only for fly sparging. Should I open my ball valve while draining just to a little over a trickle? Another thing. I do get my grains crushed at my LHBS, but it appears to me as if it is crushed fine enough. There are no intact hulls and a good amount of flour. I asked the owner of the shop if he felt the crush was fine enough for All Grain and he said that 95% of his all grain brewers have absolutely no issue's with their crush.
Any feedback will be greatly appreciated, 52% efficiency is really starting to frustrate me.