Help - Missed My OG by a mile

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klbridle

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So I am still somewhat new to all grain brewing (maybe 10 batches in) and I am trying to brew an Imperial IPA with a targeted OG of 1.077. This was my second attempt at this beer and again I missed my OG by a mile. For the second time in a row my OG came in around 1.052. With the other beers that I have brewed I have nailed the OG when I assume about 70% efficiency. I have no idea what I am doing wrong or need to do different with a high gravity beer.

Here is the recipe I am using: mashed at 154 for 60 minutes, then mash out at 170 for 10 minutes.

Grains & Adjuncts
9.00 lbs Rahr Pale Ale
3.50 lbs Fawcett Maris Otter Pale Malt
1.50 lbs Briess 2-Row Caramel 10L
1.00 lbs Simpsons Caramalt

And just to note, I use a batch sparge method as I was only getting about 60% efficiency with the fly sparge on my rectangle cooler.

Any help or suggestions would be great.
 
Are you using your own tap water? You could have really hard water, and if so should dilute with distilled if making a pale ale.

You could add some iodine to see if it turns purple, then there is starch still present and needs to sit longer in the mash.
 
I've also been missing my target gravity by a mile. I just tried to make a strong IPA using 13lbs Pale Malt and 2lbs Pale Wheat Malt, and 1.5lbs crystal and 0.5 corn sugar. My OG was 1060, though my liquid volumes were out (too much) and there was a lot of wort left behind in the kettle, perhaps up to half to three quarters of a gallon, and lots of fluid in the 6oz whole hops used. My cooler is rectangular, with a single bazooka tube-style screen, and I'm wondering if my continuous sparge method isn't suitable, and I should go a batch sparge instead? Sorry, don't mean to hijack the thread, just adding detail about my similar issue...
 
Dan said:
Are you crushing your own grain or is it precrushed?
Click to expand...

I am crushing it myself at the Northern Brewer store in Milwaukee. It did sit in the bag for about 18 hours before I brewed it so I am not sure if that had anything to do with it.
 
mbobhat said:
Are you using your own tap water? You could have really hard water, and if so should dilute with distilled if making a pale ale.

You could add some iodine to see if it turns purple, then there is starch still present and needs to sit longer in the mash.
Click to expand...


So, I have not heard of this process before. Do you just pull a sample of wort and add a few drops of iodine to that? I would interested in trying this on my next batch.
 
Malt_Man - I found that with my rectangle cooler that the batch sparge worked a lot better. I am still new at this so take this with a grain of salt but I would say try it and see what happens. I found I was getting about 0.010 better with the batch method.
 
One thing not mentioned are your water volumes and batch size.

If your volumes are off you will also miss your OG.

List all your volumes for us:
Mash in
Mash out
Batch sparges
Pre boil
Post boil
Pre boil gravity
Post boil gravity OG
Amount in primary

Any top off water?
 
klbridle said:
I am crushing it myself at the Northern Brewer store in Milwaukee. It did sit in the bag for about 18 hours before I brewed it so I am not sure if that had anything to do with it.
Click to expand...


It might be the LHBS crusher setting. Many people state their efficiency went up once they bought their own crusher as you can adjust the gap of the rollers, that what I experienced as well. Sitting 18 hours didn't hurt anything.

You ought to try to figure out your mash efficiency. It's pretty easy to do. I'll look around and see if I can find it equations and post back.
 
duboman said:
One thing not mentioned are your water volumes and batch size.

If your volumes are off you will also miss your OG.

QUOTE]


I do not have all the information with me but I do have some. It also apprears that I need to track a lot more then I have been.

List all your volumes for us:
Mash in 18.75 qt @ 166 degress
Mash out 9.75 qt @ 196 degress
Batch sparges 7.45 qt @ 170 degrees
Pre boil - will need to check my notes when I get home.
Post boil - 5.25 Gallon
Pre boil gravity - frist runnings were 1.055, batch sparge was 1.028 (I think - need to check my notes)
Post boil gravity OG 1.055
Amount in primary 5 Gallon

Any top off water? No
Click to expand...
 
Dan said:
You ought to try to figure out your mash efficiency. It's pretty easy to do. I'll look around and see if I can find it equations and post back.
Click to expand...

Thank you, that would be a big help. I have not figured this out in the past and I would be interested in knowing what it is.
 
EDIT: I removed the method i posted because I found the below link by John Palmer and ran my cacluation against his and mine came out a few percenct off. So don't want to post bad info. I got to go back and see what the difference is

I just foun a link, John Palmer explains it in much better. Here's that link http://www.howtobrew.com/section2/chapter12-5.html
 
klbridle said:
duboman said:
One thing not mentioned are your water volumes and batch size.

If your volumes are off you will also miss your OG.

QUOTE]


I do not have all the information with me but I do have some. It also apprears that I need to track a lot more then I have been.

List all your volumes for us:
Mash in 18.75 qt @ 166 degress
Mash out 9.75 qt @ 196 degress
Batch sparges 7.45 qt @ 170 degrees
Pre boil - will need to check my notes when I get home.
Post boil - 5.25 Gallon
Pre boil gravity - frist runnings were 1.055, batch sparge was 1.028 (I think - need to check my notes)
Post boil gravity OG 1.055
Amount in primary 5 Gallon

Any top off water? No
Click to expand...

So I am going through these amounts and your grain bill. You have a total of 15lbs of grain and you stated you are doing a 10 G batch.

According to the volumes you listed you only have a total water amount of 8.99G ?? Something is amiss..........

In addition you listed the pre-boil gravity of 1.055 and that's the same as the post OG? Is it possible the 1.028 was closer to your pre-boil, that would still be way low but make more sense as the wort concentrates with boil off, but usually about 10 points, not like 27....

I can only assume you meant that it was a 5 gal. batch and that would make sense with a 15# grain bill

Assuming your values are for a 5G batch your numbers look similar to what my number usually look like so first I would verify your notes and if you are not taking readings of your volumes you should start. I use a calibrated brew stick at each phase of brewing so I get a good handle on what goes in and what comes out through the process.

Second, as mentioned the next step is the crush being just as important. I had my LHBS make an adjustment on their mill for my grains and my last two batches went from 70% to 80%. Not too fine or you'll wind up with stuck sparges.

Sometimes also with bigger beers and more grain it also helps to do longer mashes. Some of my belgians mash for 75 minutes.

EDIT: Misread, my bad-10 batches, not 10 G batches so it was a 5G batch
Click to expand...
 
duboman said:
klbridle said:
So I am going through these amounts and your grain bill. You have a total of 15lbs of grain and you stated you are doing a 10 G batch.

According to the volumes you listed you only have a total water amount of 8.99G ?? Something is amiss..........

In addition you listed the pre-boil gravity of 1.055 and that's the same as the post OG? Is it possible the 1.028 was closer to your pre-boil, that would still be way low but make more sense as the wort concentrates with boil off, but usually about 10 points, not like 27....

I can only assume you meant that it was a 5 gal. batch and that would make sense with a 15# grain bill

Assuming your values are for a 5G batch your numbers look similar to what my number usually look like so first I would verify your notes and if you are not taking readings of your volumes you should start. I use a calibrated brew stick at each phase of brewing so I get a good handle on what goes in and what comes out through the process.

Second, as mentioned the next step is the crush being just as important. I had my LHBS make an adjustment on their mill for my grains and my last two batches went from 70% to 80%. Not too fine or you'll wind up with stuck sparges.

Sometimes also with bigger beers and more grain it also helps to do longer mashes. Some of my belgians mash for 75 minutes.
Click to expand...

He said his post boil volume was 5.25 gallons.. Not 10 gallons.
He also said his first runnings was 1.055 and second runnings was 1.028, so I'm guessing his pre-boil OG was somewhere around 1.040-1.045 more or less..
I do agree with having a proper crush and doing a longer mash, though..
Click to expand...
 
I caught my Mistake and went back and edited my comment about batch size, I mis-read 10 batches for batch size :drunk

I'm leaning towards the crush as previously stated:)
 

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