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beerbelay

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After implementing all I have read here and there I am still coming up low on my OG. Batch after batch. I brewed tonight and was supposed to be at 1.057 and ended up at 1.045.I'm hitting my temps, stirring my mash, I don't mash out. Should I boil longer and deal with the loss? Can I boil some DME and add to it to bring it up(this batch is in the fermenter). Getting kind of perplexed here in redneckville.
 
As a chronic misser of my numbers, I'd suggest a few things.

1) are you sure your thermometers are accurate?
2) are you sure your volume measurements are accurate (don't rely on the markings on the ale pails)
3) are you sure your gravity readings are accurate (temp corrected, etc)?
 
Man sorry to hear it! On the bright side though, if you're consistently the same percentage lower than your target you can adjust your recipe to accommodate.

I've always thought that having less amount of the target OG beer is better than more of the offtarget OG beer so boiling longer will achieve that. You'll end up with less wort and if you use the same amount of hops it could turn out significantly hoppier than you want! Having some DME on hand is probably a pretty easy fix for this all things considered, just have to do the math to figure the amount to add.

Are you getting a consistent crush on milling? Do you do a batch sparge? I adjusted those 2 things lately and am getting much better efficiency.

Good luck mate
 
I just started AG, so not a whole lot to go on, but my first couple batches efficiency was in the 80s. The 3rd batch it was in the mid-50s with very similar/nearly exact methods and equipment. I'm almost certain it was the grain crush I got from my LHBS last time. Have you checked that?
 
Thanks all, I do have the local crush the grain. I'm pretty sure the therm. and liqiud measurements are on. The beers come out good and sometimes great but I need to get this figured out. I batch sparge and this go round I sparged twice to see if I would get better results. No luck! I guess I might look at the grind,
 
Are you crushing at All Seasons? When I started all-grain I crushed a few batches there, I got about 10% lower efficiency than when I finally bought a Barley Crusher and got 82-85%.
 
How warm is the grain bed getting while sparging? I think I've narrowed down my lower efficiency to not getting the grain bed up to 168 degrees.

Yesterday I was sparging with 5 gal of water split into two rounds, and the 2.5gal of 180 degrees water only brought the grain bed up to around 160. Next time I'm going to try a mashout to help raise the grain bed.

On a related note, does anyone know how to add a mash out addition into beersmith? When I select "Single Infusion, Medium Body, Batch Sparge" there is no option to add a mash out step.
 
FWIW, I have brewed many a batch with no mashout, and a grain bed temp in the mid 150's and achieved 78% eff. each time.

I do believe that some people here have conducted COLD sparges and still had decent results.

The problem I see is that you are not measuring your eff. during the process, only post boil?

To really troubleshoot an eff. problem you need to grasp what your conversion eff. is and what your lauter eff. is. If you have those numbers, we can probably help and not have to speculate. This will tell you what process is lacking and then you can pinpoint what is lacking.
 
Not too sure how to calculate these. Does any of the brewing software on the market help with this?
 
Beersmith does. It also will allow you to scale your ingredients based on your brewhouse efficiency. If you a consistently missing your OG by the same margin, it could be your equipment. Beersmith adjusts the grain bill to compensate for this discrepancy. Works great if your missing by the same margin...not so good if you're all over the place.
 
I've heard good things about beersmith. I shall purchase and maybe get my crap toghether finally. Thanks.
 
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