Need advise on a partial mash brew

I could use some advise for the last PM brew that seems to have finished fermenting a few days after pitching the yeast.

Here is a run down on my brew day (Apr 22, 2013):

Northern Brewer PM Kit, Palmer's Elevenses Brown Ale
2lb Maris Otter
.75lb Breiss Caramel 60
.75lb Wyaermann Oak-Smoked Wheat Malt
.5lb English Brown Malt
.33lb Flaked Oats
.25lb Choc Malt
3.1lb Northern Brewer Maris Otter LME
.75oz German Northern Brewer (60min)
Safale S-04 Ale yeast


Notes:

Heated 6qt to 164* and used my new 5 gal cooler to mash grains.
After 1 hr....mash temp @ 154*
Sparged with 5 qt @ 170*
Got a total vol of approx 3 gal in BK with OG of 1.046
Did not top off to 5 gal, but boiled 3 gal for 60min
Added LME at start of boil....plus the hop addition after the heat break.
after boil....had 2 gal chilled to 98* (according to instructions)
Topped of 6 gal carboy to 5gal.
Checked OG which was 1.022
aerated wort and pitched yeast @ 77*.
Next day...fermentation had started nicely @ 68*
I was concerned about the low OG reading and made 32oz of new wort with about 1lb of light DME (boiled of course) and added to carboy.
New OG increased slightly to 1.033.
April 30.....Checked FG @ 1.020/62*.
Using a heating pad, I now have the temp back up to 70*.
I was thinking I let the temp get too low for too long and the yeast went dormant and dove to the bottom of the carboy.
I shook the carboy to get the yeast suspended again in the warmer temp wort but no action can be detected.

I believe I screwed this batch up. It tasted ok but it won't have any kick to it at all. I don't think I got a good efficiency at mash time, and it was the first time I used the cooler instead of screwing around with a pot on a burner for and hour.

Any suggestions to this poor old boy who is trying to break out of the extract kit routine?

Thanks.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/all-grain-pictorial-video-tutorials-78963/

Click the link regarding partial mash instructions. Go through the tutorial and check what you did wrong.

You don't have a specific question in your post. There is plenty of advice on this website (and others).

Doesn't sound like you did anything wrong, you clearly had a mixing issue before trying to fix it. 3 gallons of 1.046 wort gives you 138 gravity points (which for that grain bill is about 80% efficiency I think). You added 3.1 lb LME for another 112 pts, so 250 pts total. Topped off to 5 gallons of wort that should give you 1.050. With your added DME in a quart of water your OG would be around 1.056.

Measuring a gravity after 24 hrs of fermentation at relatively high temp isn't going to help you, probably a significant amount of the sugars already fermented out. I'd leave it alone another week and if stable package it.

chickypad said:

Doesn't sound like you did anything wrong, you clearly had a mixing issue before trying to fix it. 3 gallons of 1.046 wort gives you 138 gravity points (which for that grain bill is about 80% efficiency I think). You added 3.1 lb LME for another 112 pts, so 250 pts total. Topped off to 5 gallons of wort that should give you 1.050. With your added DME in a quart of water your OG would be around 1.056.

Measuring a gravity after 24 hrs of fermentation at relatively high temp isn't going to help you, probably a significant amount of the sugars already fermented out. I'd leave it alone another week and if stable package it.

Click to expand...

Sorry I didn't ask a specific question. Just was getting confused with the gravity numbers not being what was expected.

I will take your advise and proceed to bottling. I will post my findings once that all takes place.

Thanks for the reply.