All Grain Left Out 5lbs of Grain

I brewed a Sam Adams Winter Lager Clone yesterday. When I took my OG reading I realized I made a mistake somewhere as my OG was 1.022 and my target OG was 1.069.

After going through my recipe again I realized that I failed to buy all the grain I needed. The recipe was for extract brewing with notes at the bottom for all grain brewing. I knew the notes where there and replaced the wheat malt syrup with 3.5 pounds of pale malt, but I failed to increase my munich malt and wheat malt from 1.5lbs to 4lbs each.

My yeast is pitched and everything is already in my primary for 18 hours now. I have no airlock activity and no krausen.

I plan on letting it go and seeing what happens (I figure I'll just have very low ABV that, hopefully, tastes good)), but should I be concerned that there aren't enough sugars to get fermentation going? Any other concerns?

cander38 said:

I knew the notes where there and replaced the wheat malt syrup with 3.5 pounds of pale malt, but I failed to increase my crystal malt and wheat malt from 1.5lbs to 4lbs each.

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You probably just had a typo - but that recipe says "Replace the wheat malt syrup with 3.5 pounds of pale malt. Increase the Munich malt to 4 pounds and the wheat malt to 4 pounds."

Big difference between crystal 60L malt and munich.

One thing that sticks out in my mind is that the bittering will be way off - the amount of IBUs were there for the OG of 1.069. I think if it was me I'd try to add some DME to get the OG up to where it should be, boiled in the least amount of water possible.

I've never made a beer with an OG that low, but i'm sure as long as there are sugars present the yeast will go at them. However, an OG that low is probably going to lead to a very watery tasting beer. I have 2 suggestions. (1) Go get the malt extract that was required for the extract recipe (or maybe a little bit more) and mix it with as little water as possible. Bring it to a boil, cool it, then add it to the fermentor. (2) Let this batch ferment out as usual. Brew another batch of beer with the same recipe except add enough base malt to bring it to about 1.116 OG. Let that one ferment out, then blend the two of them together.

Just my 2 cents. Not really sure if either of those would work because I've never really tried anything like that.

Also, when you said "but I failed to increase my crystal malt and wheat malt from 1.5lbs to 4lbs each.", I'm guessing you meant munich malt and wheat malt right? 4 lbs of crystal would probably be way too much for any beer.

Anyway, good luck!

It was a typo, thanks for pointing it out.

I like the idea of blending another batch with it, but it will be another 4-6 weeks before I have time to brew again, so I think I'll just buy the DME.

I should use the full 6.6lbs the recipe called for?

cander38 said:

I should use the full 6.6lbs the recipe called for?

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That's what I would do.

Definitely use the full amount. I'd draw off a gallon or so of the wort and re-heat (~160F) it enough to dissolve the DME, cool, and pour back in.

david_42 said:

Definitely use the full amount. I'd draw off a gallon or so of the wort and re-heat (~160F) it enough to dissolve the DME, cool, and pour back in.

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+1. This way you won't dilute the beer with any extra water, and if you heat it to ~160F it will pasteurize the DME.

david_42 said:

Definitely use the full amount. I'd draw off a gallon or so of the wort and re-heat (~160F) it enough to dissolve the DME, cool, and pour back in.

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+1 really good idea.

david_42 said:

Definitely use the full amount. I'd draw off a gallon or so of the wort and re-heat (~160F) it enough to dissolve the DME, cool, and pour back in.

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Picked up the DME today and plan on doing this. Wanted to do it yesterday, but made it to my LHBS 5 minutes after closing time.

Thanks for all the advice, guys!

david_42 said:

Definitely use the full amount. I'd draw off a gallon or so of the wort and re-heat (~160F) it enough to dissolve the DME, cool, and pour back in.

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I just posted a question about adding DME to the fermenter today.
This seems like a great answer - almost too easy.
Is 160 degrees enough to sterilize the DME without killing the yeast cells in the drawn off wort?
Is a light DME the best sugar to use?
Any clue on how to figure the alcohol / SG jump for DME added to a 5 gallon batch.

schwinn said:

I just posted a question about adding DME to the fermenter today.
This seems like a great answer - almost too easy.
Is 160 degrees enough to sterilize the DME without killing the yeast cells in the drawn off wort?
Is a light DME the best sugar to use?
Any clue on how to figure the alcohol / SG jump for DME added to a 5 gallon batch.

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Light DME is probably your best bet. You will definitely lose the yeast that you heat, how much depends on how they've already reproduced and how much wort you take out. I'd watch a couple days, and worst case you may need to repitch.

After you add in the new wort, should just be able to take a hydrometer reading and find your new OG, assuming the yeast haven't done much to your original wort and calculate like normal.

schwinn said:

I just posted a question about adding DME to the fermenter today.
This seems like a great answer - almost too easy.
Is 160 degrees enough to sterilize the DME without killing the yeast cells in the drawn off wort?
Is a light DME the best sugar to use?
Any clue on how to figure the alcohol / SG jump for DME added to a 5 gallon batch.

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160 is definitely enough to kill everything in the beer including the yeast. If you didn't kill the yeast you wouldn't be doing a very good job of pasteurizing. You can leave it at 160 for a while if you want to be absolutely sure. If you only draw off a small amount of your beer then there will be enough yeast left in the rest of it to handle the added DME. You can shake or stir the yeast cake if it's been sitting for while to put some yeast back in suspension.

Just add however much DME you put in there to the original recipe and figure out the OG of that.

Another question (actually 2 questions)....

I'm going to draw off a gallon of wort and add the DME tonight. I am about 40 hours in since I pitched my yeast (WLP830), however, and have absolutely no sign of fermentation. Is this because my OG was so low? Will adding the DME get things kicked off? Should I repitch with the DME or just add the DME and see if things get going?

Also, the optimum fermenting temp for WLP830 is 50-55*. I know that fermentation raises the temp for Ales a lot, so you want the ambient temp about 7-5 degrees lower then your optimum fermentation temp. Is this the same with lagers? Once fermentation starts, can I just put my fermemnter in my fridge and keep it at 43-45* knowing that the wort is 5-7 degrees warmer?

Do you think you need to pull off an entire gallon?

You should be able to dissolve approximately 18 oz of sugar in 8 oz of water.
Granted that is unsaturated water so actual with already suspended sugars will be less. I would just worry about all the yeast you are pulling out of solution they will die (especially if fermentation hasn't even started yet).

Is more yeast going to be needed on this one?

cander38 said:

Another question (actually 2 questions)....

I'm going to draw off a gallon of wort and add the DME tonight. I am about 40 hours in since I pitched my yeast (WLP830), however, and have absolutely no sign of fermentation. Is this because my OG was so low? Will adding the DME get things kicked off? Should I repitch with the DME or just add the DME and see if things get going?

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You may just have to see how it goes. I'd even suggest taking a hydrometer reading to see where you are at if anywhere, there may not have been enough sugar to show any signs of fermentation, but it could be going on anyway. I would be prepared to re-pitch if necessary

cander38 said:

Also, the optimum fermenting temp for WLP830 is 50-55*. I know that fermentation raises the temp for Ales a lot, so you want the ambient temp about 7-5 degrees lower then your optimum fermentation temp. Is this the same with lagers? Once fermentation starts, can I just put my fermemnter in my fridge and keep it at 43-45* knowing that the wort is 5-7 degrees warmer?

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Theoretically that should work, but after the first few days of active fermentation, make sure you raise the temp back up to the actual optimum range or it could stall.

schwinn said:

Is more yeast going to be needed on this one?

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I dunno, it's a lager, they can be slow. If the OP didn't make a starter, then it's definitely going to take off slow.

Quick update:
I just got everything back in my fermenter. When I opened my fermenter there was a small amount of krauzen (which wasn't there at the 40 hour mark since pitch). I opened it at about 48 hours since pitch. I drew out 1 gallon of wort, took it up to 160* added 6.6lbs of my DME, cooled and returned everything to my fermenter. Within 3 minutes of replacing the lid and airlock, I have airlock activity.

Anyways, Thanks to everyone for their input! I will update in a few months when my lager is finished.

cander38 said:

Quick update:
I just got everything back in my fermenter. When I opened my fermenter there was a small amount of krauzen (which wasn't there at the 40 hour mark since pitch). I opened it at about 48 hours since pitch. I drew out 1 gallon of wort, took it up to 160* added 6.6lbs of my DME, cooled and returned everything to my fermenter. Within 3 minutes of replacing the lid and airlock, I have airlock activity.

Anyways, Thanks to everyone for their input! I will update in a few months when my lager is finished.

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Thats good news.
Sounds like everything went well. I will be trying the same thing tonight (on a smaller scale with only 1lb of DME). If you managed with 6.6 lbs - mine should be a breeze.