Low OG Again What am I doing wrong?

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vindee

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Ok, this time I lowered my efficiency to 71% and adjusted my grain bill up to compensate and still only came up with 1.034 OG measured at 65 deg.
Mashed at 155 deg for one hour and did a mash out at 159 deg for 10 minutes.
Batch sparged at 165. Ended up with 6.2 gallons for a 5 gallon batch.

0.50 lb Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 4.88 %
4.25 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 41.46 %
4.25 lb Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 41.46 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 9.76 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 2.44 %
0.30 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (60 min) Hops 16.6 IBU
0.75 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 7.5 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (1 min) Hops 0.4 IBU
1 Pkgs American Hefeweizen Ale (White Labs #WLP320) Yeast-Wheat

I would sure like to get closer to the 1.042 pre boil mark.
Thanks
 
First, have you recently calibrated your thermometers and hydrometer? If they're off even a little it can throw things off a lot. Inaccurate volume measurents can also make it seem like your efficiency is much worse than it is. How is your crush? Are you buying pre-milled grains or milling yourself? Are you stirring really really well at dough in to make sure there are no dough balls and then again before sparging? Could be any number of things, but we really need to know more about your process to pin it down.
 
Ok, this time I lowered my efficiency to 71% and adjusted my grain bill up to compensate and still only came up with 1.034 OG measured at 65 deg.
Mashed at 155 deg for one hour and did a mash out at 159 deg for 10 minutes.
Batch sparged at 165. Ended up with 6.2 gallons for a 5 gallon batch.

0.50 lb Rice Hulls (0.0 SRM) Adjunct 4.88 %
4.25 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 41.46 %
4.25 lb Wheat Malt, Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 41.46 %
1.00 lb Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 9.76 %
0.25 lb Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 2.44 %
0.30 oz Warrior [15.00 %] (60 min) Hops 16.6 IBU
0.75 oz Cascade [5.50 %] (15 min) Hops 7.5 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [5.50 %] (1 min) Hops 0.4 IBU
1 Pkgs American Hefeweizen Ale (White Labs #WLP320) Yeast-Wheat

I would sure like to get closer to the 1.042 pre boil mark.
Thanks

I've been hanging around 70% All Grain efficiency with 48 qt mash tun manifold setup with Keggle. In my opinion, I'd say add some more grain. The one I brewed last week had about 13 lbs total grain bill and I hit 1.052 on a nut brown. This week I did a Tank 7 Farmhouse Clone and hit 1.077 on a 15 lb grain Bill. Both 60 min mash at about 156. I do a hybrid type sparge with a colander @ 170 with a very very slow drain. About 1 hour to get my 6.75 gallon preboil. Another thing that may sound stupid but you never know, check the accuracy of your hydrometer using tap water.
 
My hydrometer is accurate in plain water, and I am using a new digital temperature display with a Pl 385 RTD temp probe accurate at 32 degress and dead on at a boil at 212.4 deg.
I do stir and mix very well at dough in, once in the middle of mash, and again at mash out.
My grains are milled at the time I get the grains. The crush looks good to me, but that dosen't mean it's not correct.
Hope this helps
 
My hydrometer is accurate in plain water, and I am using a new digital temperature display with a Pl 385 RTD temp probe accurate at 32 degress and dead on at a boil at 212.4 deg.
I do stir and mix very well at dough in, once in the middle of mash, and again at mash out.
My grains are milled at the time I get the grains. The crush looks good to me, but that dosen't mean it's not correct.
Hope this helps

What type of mash tun do you have? Manifold or Braid?
 
The mash tun is a 52 qt. Coleman extreme with a 1/2" copper pipe manifold setup with slits cut with a hacksaw every 1/2" along the bottom. (copyed from a design I found online)
 
How does crush affect efficiency?

This was exactly my problem when I started all-grain. I was having the grain pre-crushed from an on-line source (thought it would save time); my efficiency was no where near what others in my club were getting from using the club's mill.

Too little milling means the grain remains in large pieces thus exposing less of the surface area of each (crushed) kernel to the wonderful warm water mash, thus extracting less. To much milling and of course you risk a stuck sparge. It is a narrow window, and somewhat dependent on your sparge equipment, that I think you just have to experiment around with to find the sweet spot. :mug:
 
My efficiency has been low two just finished a batch of kolsch Last night at 1.040. Mashed at 149 batch spathe 160. Milling is good done at my lhbs this is the second all grain batch with a low efficiency
 
I'm just going to ask the obvious here, but was your recipe formulated for 6 gallons, or 5? That extra gallon if your calcs were based on 5 gallons would account for a large portion of your difference. Otherwise i would tend to agree w/the crush being your culprit. I gained almost 20% efficiency when i started crushing my grains at home.
 
Mash ph? If your water chemistry is off that can def effect the conversion of starches in solution and may account for low efficiency.
 
I'm beginning to think it is in the crush. Although it looks right to me based on pictures others have posted.
 
I'm just going to ask the obvious here, but was your recipe formulated for 6 gallons, or 5? That extra gallon if your calcs were based on 5 gallons would account for a large portion of your difference. Otherwise i would tend to agree w/the crush being your culprit. I gained almost 20% efficiency when i started crushing my grains at home.

That is part of it, but I ran the numbers in BTP and that's still in the 60% range - so there's something else going on.
 
I'm in your same boat dude.
I've been doing AG for about a year. Got the whole Brutus 10 package w/ 10 gallon keggles (it's not automated yet). I always ran temperature high so I could get the sweeter flavor. The last beer I made came out very thin.
To combat this, I got a PH meter and a grain mill. I tasted the wort on the last batch I made on Tuesday and it came out very flavorful. Hopefully it will come out a little more full bodied than this one I just tapped. GOOD LUCK!


*EDIT*
Just checked my 3 Brewmometers and they were off by as much as 20 degrees at 160 on one of them. I used an old school medical style thermometer and another turkey style probe thermometer as a reference and they both disagreed with the Blichmanns. I guess thats why the Blichmanns are able to be calibrated?
 
Describe your lautering process, and how long it takes you.

After my hour of 155 deg mash and 10 minute 260 deg mash out, I Vorlauf. First runnings take approximatly 5 minutes.
Then pour in 170 deg sparge water mix it up and run it off in about 3 minutes.
 
try letting you batch sparge sit for about 10 minutes to give the water more time to dissolve and and pick-up the sugars. Also, check for channeling in your mash tune. if all the water is running through channels along the outside of the tune rather than filtering down through the grain bed that will kill you efficiency.

Where is you manifold located? If the copper is too close to the side walls that will make the channeling worse. You want the copper tubes evening spaced between the center line of the cooler and the side walls.
 
try letting you batch sparge sit for about 10 minutes to give the water more time to dissolve and and pick-up the sugars. Also, check for channeling in your mash tune. if all the water is running through channels along the outside of the tune rather than filtering down through the grain bed that will kill you efficiency.

Where is you manifold located? If the copper is too close to the side walls that will make the channeling worse. You want the copper tubes evening spaced between the center line of the cooler and the side walls.

Channeling isn't really an issue when batch sparging.. you're getting the sugar in solution and then draining it all so you don't leave pockets of sugar like you might when fly sparging.
 
I still need to understand if you have 6.2 gal after boil or before. If you are brewing for 5 gal finished and ending up with 6.2 finished you are certianly contributing to if not completely explaining the low OG.
 
Channeling isn't really an issue when batch sparging.. you're getting the sugar in solution and then draining it all so you don't leave pockets of sugar like you might when fly sparging.

true that... i was not even thinking that the OP was batch sparging.
 
I still need to understand if you have 6.2 gal after boil or before. If you are brewing for 5 gal finished and ending up with 6.2 finished you are certianly contributing to if not completely explaining the low OG.

I start with 6.1 to 6.2 gal. pre boil with a gravity of 1.033. 5 gallons after boil with a gravity of 1.042 at 70 degrees.
Thanks
Steve
 
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