did first mini-mash... I Got a question

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LS_Grimmy

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Location
Cold Lake , Alberta
Hey fellas,

I did my first mini-mash and I must say it was pretty awesome. I really enjoyed the process and found it facinating. Although my house smelt like a dope house when I started tossing in my hops, lol. It's very time consuming but I found it very rewarding. I wish I would if used a recipe from a book instead of doing one myself because I think I messed it up.

My problem is that the recipe I made using a beer calcualor said my SG would be around 1.057. When I finished it all and took my OG with temp correction is was at 1.030!!! I'm not sure what I did here because my temp for my mash was between 150-155F the whole time (mostly @ 150f). I'm thinking I miss calculated my fermentables....Oh ya and I used a roller to break up the grains which was a lot of work.

Here is my ingredients and process. If anyone sees what went wrong any feedback would be great.

IBU's 20
SRM's 35
5 gallon batch

Ingredients:
2 lbs American Pale Malt
1 lbs Crystal Malt L80
1 lbs Crystal Malt L120
1 lbs Munich Malt
4 lbs Light Liquid Malt Extract
Irish Moss 1 tsp
1 oz Fuggles (AA%4.0)
0.5 oz Fuggles (AA%4.0)
0.5 ozFuggles (AA%4.0)
WYeast 1728 Scottish Ale

Procedure:
-Boild 7 litres of water and did mash @ 150-155F for 60 minutes
-Sparged with 2 litres of water @ 170F
-Removed kettle from heat, and added Liquid malt extract
-Started rollover boil with below hop schedule
1 oz Fuggles (AA%4.0) - 60 min
0.5 oz Fuggles (AA%4.0) - 15 min
Irish Moss 1 tsp - 15 min
0.5 ozFuggles (AA%4.0) - 5 min
-Added to primary with remaining water to make 23 litres
-Made yeast starter 2 days before and pitched

Any Ideas what happened here? I had to add tons of dextrose at the last min to get the gravity up. Was the beer calculator off? did I enter info wrong in it maybe?

Either way I enjoyed it and I should get some pretty good beer out of it. Well way better than my usual extract beers anyway.

Cheers,
LS_Grimmy
 
You gravity should have been in the 1.053 - 1.057 range. What most likely went wrong was you got poor efficiency (way under 50% by my calculations). This could be a result of the grain crush or your sparging method. I would bet on the grain crush.

How did you mash and sparge? This is important info to troubleshoot your efficiency.

My first and only mini-mash I hit 50%. My first AG I hit 51%. My second I hit 81%.

The mini mash my temps were too low, the first AG my temps were too high and I used too much water. My last batch that I hit 81% I just took my time to make sure everything was done exactly right.

The more you do it the better you will get.
 
I would have used about 6 liters for the mash and about 9 1/2 to ten liters of sparge liquor. A total of 15 1/2 to 16 liters. Some where in the neighborhood of 2 liters would be absorbed by the grain. With this method you will end up with about 14 liters in the brew pot.
I think you converted the grains just fine you just didn't have enough water to rinse all the sugars.
You have 2 pounds of crystal malt. That is a lot. I would be very curious what that will do to your beer. That wouldn't effect your efficiency but I just wanted to mention it.
 
I used a rolling pin to crush my grains and put them in a grain bag. I also used 2 liters of sparge water. I just put the bag in a strainer and poured the water over it.
 
Ya I think that was to much crystal malt... it's gunna be a heavy beer :). O well I'm happy with my first try once I figure out how to get my efficiency up. Maybe I didn't sparge enough and long enough. I tell ya one thing it's damn dark beer, lol. I'll send you some pics when fermentation dies down.

what do you guys think?
 
can anyone post the expected (approx) gravity contribution of 1lb of crushed pale malt to a brew? ie if I use 5 lbs of extract will 2lbs of pale malt held at 150 for 60 and cllander sparged with 170 deg H20 brinkg me to a respectable gravity ie 1.040-1.050?

Not trying to hijack - thought is was relevant and more efficient than a new post
 
Of course your efficiency would affect the answer, however I ran the numbers and you should be at about 1.056 with 5 lbs of DME and 2 lbs of 2-row.

% Weight Weight (lbs) Grain Gravity Points Color
71.4 % 5.00 Light Dry Malt Extract 45.0 2.0
28.6 % 2.00 American Two-row Pale 11.1 0.7
7.00 56.1

It would be at 1.045 if you used LME.

So 1lb of 2-row pale malt at 75% efficiency is approx. 5.5 gravity points.
 
Thanks so much for that picture. That really shows me that I didn't even come close to crushing my grains enough. I'll crush them more for sure next time. Nice to compare my pic with yours to get a real visual.

Thanks for all the help guys,
LS_Grimmy
 
Well finally got this brew bottled and conditioned... Although it's not the best beer I have ever had I am really impressed on how it turned out. Maybe a little to hoppy for a Scottish ale but all in all a decent beer. Out of all the extract/specials I've made I have to say this is the best beer I have made so far... So I'm happy and have loads of improvments to work on for my next batch, Thanks for all the info again

Cheers,
LS_Grimmy
 
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