bobwantbeer
Well-Known Member
Last Monday I got a terrible efficiency while brewing Bobby's Amber Ale. Also I realized I was mashing in with too much water at too low of a temperature, 5 gallons at 154. This monday I was brewing the Chaos IPA from the forum database. I mashed in with 4 gallons at 168 which according to the calculator I used should have settled my mash temp pto 153. For some reason I still missed my strike temp by about 14-15 degrees. so I added 1,5 gallons of boiling water until I got it up to 153. It maintained that temperature for the full hour like it should. I was originally going to have two batch sparges at 2.25 gallons a piece, but since I added the extra water to rescue my strike temp I decided to do one sparge with 3 gallons only. I've since read that doing only one sparge will cause a 10-15% efficiency loss, so that might partially explain my problem. Long story short, Before the boil I took a hydrometer reading of 1.039 at 130 degrees, which converts to 1.053. Very low considering my OG was supposed to be 1.066. I did the boil(Hit my target volume dead on for the first time to look on the bright side) and ended up with an OG of 1.035 at 55 degrees. 30 points short of what I wanted. Why? Dear sweet lord why? I got a better efficiency last week with 5 gallons of of strike water that was too cool. 42% efficiency according to bear tools. To top it all off we discovered that we never succesfully popped the pouch inside our activator yeast until the package was opened. I stabbed the pouch with a pin, taped the package up, shook it and let it sit for about half an hour before pitching it. So that can't be good either. Why does life have to be so hard?