5 gal batch boiled down to 3 gal

So, had kinda a bad brew day. In a nut shell, my pre boil gravity came in way low, and I had to compensate by a longer boil. I went into my fermentor with just about 3 gallons. Do I need to be concerned with all the dead space in the FV? And, I was still about 10 points off from my OG.

I'm amazed that grain grinding can have such a big impact on efficiency.

Did you grind the grains yourself?

What was your efficiency %?

What does your MLT look like?

How long was the boil?

What was the grain bill?

The head space should not be an issue, but what happened?

masskrug said:

Did you grind the grains yourself?

What was your efficiency %?

What does your MLT look like?

How long was the boil?

What was the grain bill?

The head space should not be an issue, but what happened?

Click to expand...

I didn't grind the grains, they came pre ground from Northern Brew. My mash tun is a 10 gallon igloo cooler with a stainless steel hose for my filter.

Well, the boil was supposed to have been 60 min, but I boiled for 110 min.

Grain bill was:

11 lbs. Rahr 2-Row
1 lbs. Briess Caramel 40--
0.75 oz. Centennial (60 min)
-- 1 oz. Centennial (20 min)
-- 2 oz. Centennial (5 min)

My mash went PERFECT! I held it at 152 for the full 60 min. I vorlofed, mashed out, and did a one step batch sparge with 3.25 gallons. I mixed well before I drained.

I took my Preboil reading, and it came out to 1.034, and was supposed to have been 1.050. Sooooo, I panicked and decided to boil longer, and add a pound of DME. I was supposed to wrap up at 1.064, but came in at 1.055. And, only 3 gallons in the fermentor. I cannot believe just a poor grind is to blame? What else did I do wrong here? This is only my second all grain batch, so I am really not sure what I did or didnt do. I do know that I did a good job on the mash temps. I pretty much went with what beersmith told me to do, from water volumes to temps.

Well, at least I have 3 gallons... I just hope its not over hopped. I did not adjust the hops at all to compensate for the boil off. Good thing Im a hop head I guess. Any suggestions as to what may have gone wrong and what I can do to dial this in any better next time? I do know that I am going to buy a grain mill.

Is the 1.034 with the temperature adjustment?

What was the temp of the wort when you took the reading ?

SpottedDogBrewing said:

Is the 1.034 with the temperature adjustment?

What was the temp of the wort when you took the reading ?

Click to expand...

I used a refractometer that has auto temp adjust, so I did not make any adjustments. The temp was prob around 140-145

Oh, man! So, I just read the fine print on my refractometer. It has auto temp compensation from 0-30 degrees Celsius. I did my measurement at around 140-145 Fahrenheit, which is 63 Celsius.. Not sure what kind of beer I just made, but I'm guessing a pretty strong IPA? I'll see what the temp settings are for and how to compensate. What an idiot I am!!!

You can always thin it down to a more reasonable OG, or keep closer as is and enjoy a stronger beer. As long as your yeast hasn't gone into sugar shock, you should be fine.

No need to worry about head space in a primary. But make sure fermentation starts soon, though.

Did you take a close look at the grist and how it was milled? There are some horror stories circling here lately on poor grinds from mail-order vendors.

IslandLizard said:

You can always thin it down to a more reasonable OG, or keep closer as is and enjoy a stronger beer. As long as your yeast hasn't gone into sugar shock, you should be fine.

No need to worry about head space in a primary. But make sure fermentation starts soon, though.

Did you take a close look at the grist and how it was milled? There are some horror stories circling here lately on poor grinds from mail-order vendors.

Click to expand...

Fermentation is going off the hook right now. I've got a 4" layer of krausen. It was a bout a 6 hr lag time. Now I'm guessing.....although the temp of my pre boil wort was 145, I imagine the drops came down in temp rather quickly and did give me an accurate reading. Guess I should have done a gravity check with my hydrometer

I'm also thinking I jumped into all grain too quickly. I've only got 4 extract batches, now the two all grains under my belt. I should probably dial in and figure out my equipment and boil off rates a bit better on another batch or two of extract. I also came in way low on my other all grain, and that one was checked with a hydrometer.

This is why I don't bother with readings, I'd probably end up reading them wrong anyway. I just like to get it to the right consistency and sweetness, does it look weak, does it taste weak? If so, add more stuff or like you did, boil off. Too thick/too strong? Add some water. I know for some it's an exact science, but it doesn't have to be that difficult.

arborman said:

I didn't grind the grains, they came pre ground from Northern Brew. My mash tun is a 10 gallon igloo cooler with a stainless steel hose for my filter.

Well, the boil was supposed to have been 60 min, but I boiled for 110 min.

Grain bill was:

11 lbs. Rahr 2-Row
1 lbs. Briess Caramel 40--
0.75 oz. Centennial (60 min)
-- 1 oz. Centennial (20 min)
-- 2 oz. Centennial (5 min)

My mash went PERFECT! I held it at 152 for the full 60 min. I vorlofed, mashed out, and did a one step batch sparge with 3.25 gallons. I mixed well before I drained.

I took my Preboil reading, and it came out to 1.034, and was supposed to have been 1.050. Sooooo, I panicked and decided to boil longer, and add a pound of DME. I was supposed to wrap up at 1.064, but came in at 1.055. And, only 3 gallons in the fermentor. I cannot believe just a poor grind is to blame? What else did I do wrong here? This is only my second all grain batch, so I am really not sure what I did or didnt do. I do know that I did a good job on the mash temps. I pretty much went with what beersmith told me to do, from water volumes to temps.

Well, at least I have 3 gallons... I just hope its not over hopped. I did not adjust the hops at all to compensate for the boil off. Good thing Im a hop head I guess. Any suggestions as to what may have gone wrong and what I can do to dial this in any better next time? I do know that I am going to buy a grain mill.

Click to expand...

How much water in the mash? 3.25 gallons of sparge water sounds too low and could account for the lack of volume and the low efficiency to some extent. You may have left a lot of fermentables in the mash tun. Did you take a reading of the second runnings?

Oh, and there's no such thing as jumping too quickly to all-grain in my opinion. Vikings didn't have extract at all and they figured it out.

arborman said:

Oh, man! So, I just read the fine print on my refractometer. It has auto temp compensation from 0-30 degrees Celsius. I did my measurement at around 140-145 Fahrenheit, which is 63 Celsius.. Not sure what kind of beer I just made, but I'm guessing a pretty strong IPA? I'll see what the temp settings are for and how to compensate. What an idiot I am!!!

Click to expand...

I always use the Refractometer for quick checks and not for accurate numbers.
I will always float a Hydrometer in the wort before I pitch the yeast to get the OG that I use for the batch. That way I know the temp that I'm taking the measurement from.
Your beer will defiantly be stronger than intended

forstmeister said:

How much water in the mash? 3.25 gallons of sparge water sounds too low and could account for the lack of volume and the low efficiency to some extent. You may have left a lot of fermentables in the mash tun. Did you take a reading of the second runnings?

Click to expand...

The numbers I went with came right off beersmith for my recipe. 4 gallons into the mash, and 3.25 for the sparge. Was supposed to have been about 6.2 gal pre boil. I did not take a reading of the second runnings, only after I mixed them with the first runnings.

Well, this boils down to the idea that...if you don't start with enopugh volume, you can't finish with enough.
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This is the way I learned to do it, so if my software tells me something different, I take a hard look at whats happening.:
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5. After the full 60 minute mash, open the drain valve on the MLT and collect 2 quarts of wort into a pitcher. Carefully return this back on top of the mash (this is vorlaufing), then drain the entire MLT into a bucket. If the bucket has graduation marks, take note how much wort you collected. You're going to find that you lost a good percentage of liquid to grain absorption. In our example, it's likely that you only got out 2.5 gallons from the 3.75 strike volume. Here's where you have to decide ultimately how much wort you want in the kettle to start with. You will boil off about 1.25 gallons in 60 minutes of vigorous boil so you'll want at least 6.5gallons to start with. To figure out how much to sparge with, take this pre boil figure (6.5) and subtract it from how much wort you collected out of the MLT for first runnings (say 2.5). This leaves you with 4 gallons. This is exactly how much you'll need to sparge with.
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You just didn't have enough water, maybe you didn't even get enough first runnings, didn't use enough sparge water and boiled longer than the recipe called for, all this caused a smaller volume into the fermenter. No two batches of grain will absorb the same amount of water, despite what the software says, we have to make adjustments to preboil volume to end up with proper post boil volume. I am not sure why you boiled longer than called for but that always means less post boil volume.
I don't think the extra head space in the primary will hurt as you have a good fermentation going. Software helps a lot, but people were making good beer long before software came along. Always figure your volumes and compare with the software figures..they are more of a guideline anyway IMHO.

arborman said:

So, had kinda a bad brew day. In a nut shell, my pre boil gravity came in way low, and I had to compensate by a longer boil. I went into my fermentor with just about 3 gallons. Do I need to be concerned with all the dead space in the FV? And, I was still about 10 points off from my OG.

I'm amazed that grain grinding can have such a big impact on efficiency.

Click to expand...

Right, a typical gravity of about 1.040 will produce about 60 gallons of CO2 per gallon of wort. So having an extra 2 gallons of head space? not a problem.