Low OG - Denny Conn's Wry Smile Rye IPA

Hello,

I have only three all grain brews under my belt and all have had significantly low original gravity. I've searched through many "Low OG" post here and haven't really gotten a better understanding of what I am doing wrong.

My first all grain was the Widmer W11' KGB Russian Imperial stout, the OG was low, but the beer is really really good.

In the last week I brewed Pliny the Elder with a goal of 1.072 and it came out to 1.036.

Yesterday I brewed Denny Conn's Wry Smile Rye IPA with a goal OG goal of 1.073 and it came to 1.055. I added an extra pound of two row to try and help my efficiency, but it didn't help. I also ran the grain through the mill twice at the home brew supply to make sure I had a good crush.

All have been batch sparged and I've calculated the amounts online. I am using a circular 10 gallon cooler with a bazooka tube.

My biggest question is how about initial strike temperature. I got a little careless (miscalculated) and put in the initial water at 172 degrees with a grain temp at 65 degree. The mash settled at 160 degrees while I tried to search online what to do. After 5-10 minutes I added a gallon of cold water to bring down the temperature to about 155 degrees or so. Did this kill of something and ruin my efficiency? I'm not sure. I added 2.2 gallons for the batch sparge, stirred for a minute or two, let it set for 5 minutes, and then drained into the brew kettle. I am using the hydrometer from the ball valve in my brew pot about half way through the run off at 72 degrees. And taking the sample right as it is going into primary.

Any recommendations would be great. Hopefully the beer will be good anyways.

-
Craig

You probably saw this in your thread search but how is your crush? I am using standard one crush and getting 70%+ with a ghetto system so I really wonder what is going on when I see efficiency so low compared to mine.

Other questions:

Is this two batch sparges or one?

Did you miscalculate the temp in both brews?

What is your system? Manifold? Braid?

ontum said:

Hello,

I have only three all grain brews under my belt and all have had significantly low original gravity. I've searched through many "Low OG" post here and haven't really gotten a better understanding of what I am doing wrong.

My first all grain was the Widmer W11' KGB Russian Imperial stout, the OG was low, but the beer is really really good.

In the last week I brewed Pliny the Elder with a goal of 1.072 and it came out to 1.036.

Yesterday I brewed Denny Conn's Wry Smile Rye IPA with a goal OG goal of 1.073 and it came to 1.055. I added an extra pound of two row to try and help my efficiency, but it didn't help. I also ran the grain through the mill twice at the home brew supply to make sure I had a good crush.

All have been batch sparged and I've calculated the amounts online. I am using a circular 10 gallon cooler with a bazooka tube.

My biggest question is how about initial strike temperature. I got a little careless (miscalculated) and put in the initial water at 172 degrees with a grain temp at 65 degree. The mash settled at 160 degrees while I tried to search online what to do. After 5-10 minutes I added a gallon of cold water to bring down the temperature to about 155 degrees or so. Did this kill of something and ruin my efficiency? I'm not sure. I added 2.2 gallons for the batch sparge, stirred for a minute or two, let it set for 5 minutes, and then drained into the brew kettle. I am using the hydrometer from the ball valve in my brew pot about half way through the run off at 72 degrees. And taking the sample right as it is going into primary.

Any recommendations would be great. Hopefully the beer will be good anyways.

-
Craig

Click to expand...

A good part of your problem is that the mill at the LHBS is set so loose that it barely cracks the grains. By running the grain through a second time you still got a barely acceptable crush. Compound that with rye which is smaller and harder kernels to crush and it isn't any wonder you have low efficiency. Your choices are to get the owner of the LHBS to tighten the gap on the mill (good luck with that) or get your own mill and do the grain your way.

I know you think grain mills are expensive but they needn't be. Instead of thinking of Monster Mill or Barley Crusher you might think of Corona style mills. You can get one of those for under $30 delivered to your door and start milling your own grains.

I too WAS have efficency problems (low60's), I asked the LHBS guy for any advise, he told me to if you let the running drain really slow, like 45/55 mins it will help. I batch sparge only the once, so after converstion add remaining water-full volume in tun-and do as he told me. Problem solved, 75/80% every time.

Hope this helps

Dan

Calichusetts said:

You probably saw this in your thread search but how is your crush? I am using standard one crush and getting 70%+ with a ghetto system so I really wonder what is going on when I see efficiency so low compared to mine.

Other questions:

Is this two batch sparges or one?

Did you miscalculate the temp in both brews?

What is your system? Manifold? Braid?

Click to expand...

Thank you for the replies.

I did the initial mash water. 5-10 minutes later I added 1 gallon cold water. Then I did a single batch sparge of 2.2 gallons. I believe I was supposed to do 3.2 gallons for the batch sparge, but I deducted a gallon of the one I put in early.

The temp was too high on the initial mash, but the batch sparge should have been spot on. I use the bazooka tube style braid filter on the 10 gallon drinking cooler.

For the Rye IPA the home brew shop said their mill wasn't getting the best crush, but running it through twice would be sufficient. Maybe the crush still wasn't good, but it seemed good in my hand.
The Pliny the Elder brew was brewed with grain from a different home brew supply store all together, but its possible that they both have poor preforming mills.

RM-MN- Its funny that you recommend I buy as mill as I work for Bob's Red Mill, where we specialize is slow stone ground flours. I guess I should be the first person to buy a mill, but I wasn't aware Corona mills would suffice.

MrFeltimo- I will slow down the drain and see what happens next time.


I guess I would like opinions on the possibility of crush being bad a both home brew shops. If this sounds like the most likely problem and purchasing the cheaper mill will help, I will do just that. I don't really drink my beers if they come out "okay," and they sit in my kegs for a year while I drink other things. If brewing didn't take so much time and effort, I would just keep brewing until I worked out all the bugs. Getting all your advice is great money and time saver. Thank you.

RM-MN- Its funny that you recommend I buy as mill as I work for Bob's Red Mill, where we specialize is slow stone ground flours. I guess I should be the first person to buy a mill, but I wasn't aware Corona mills would suffice.

Click to expand...

Are you willing to add another item to purchase and change your method of mashing for one (at least) small batch to see if the crush is the major problem or if I'm all wrong? Add a paint strainer bag and the Corona style mill and then do a half size batch BIAB. For that you will start with 3.75 gallons of water brought to 162 degrees F. Put the paint strainer bag into the pot and stir in all your finely milled grains (all the grains needed for a 2 1/2 gallon batch that is). Put the lid on the pot and give it half an hour, then lift the bag and let it drain. You can set it on some type of rack over the pot or into a collander set into a bowl and you can squeeze out as much wort as you can. Then take a sample for the hydrometer and let it cool, then get a reading and compare to what you batch should come out.

This is the type of mill I use. I slip a gallon ziplock bag over the grinding plates so the grain doesn't fly everywhere while I mill. http://www.discounttommy.com/p-189-...er-for-wheat-grains-or-use-as-a-nut-mill.aspx

If you get a mill like the one above and find that your efficiency goes up but that cranking the mill is too much work, at least you will know that the crush of the grain is to blame and can invest in a better mill.

Might be a silly question - but are you draining the mash first before adding the batch sparge water?

I've read up on the Corona mills and it the results seem very mixed with a lot of people struggling to get a good crush without lots of experimentation. I'm torn on purchasing this style of mill.

I am draining the mash before I add the sparge water.

Well I brewed another Imperial Stout and my desired OG was 1.090, but I achieved 1.060 measured post boil.
Her is a pick of my crush. Does this look good?





After weeding through many threads about low OG I suspected that there might be a problem with my thermometer that I purchased at the brew shop years ago. I placed the thermometer into a boiling pot and after a bit it read 218 degrees F. In ice water the thermometer read around 41 degrees and my digital meat thermometer read 37 degrees.

I heat my sparge water in my keggles that have built in thermometers which are accurate and drain into my 10 gal. cooler. The Imperial stout used 164 degree of sparge water and I measured 160 degrees in my MLT after 5 minutes of stirring and again after it sat for 5 minutes. In the last several batches I end up with too high a mash temperature (according to the thermometer at around 160 degrees F, with just a little preheat of my mlt. So I've had to add cool water or leave the lid off to try and lower the temp.

If my mash temp is really 6 degrees lower, somewhere around 147-146 degrees F, would this bring my efficiency down to 50 percent? I threw out the off thermometer and will check my next mash with two different thermometers, but I'm trying to narrow down as many low efficiency culprits as possible. Should I brew again and hope the thermometer was my biggest problem for 50 efficiency, or dig further?

I apologize for this dime a dozen thread, but I really appreciate the help.

-
Craig

Look closely at your crushed grains. See any half kernels or quarter kernels? Do you know how long it takes to get them wet all the way to the center and then to leach the sugars back out. Think in terms of hours and you'll be close. The best way to increase your efficiency is to get a better crush.

Hello,

I've done many brews since my last post on here concerning low OG. I still get low efficiency even with better equipment and even a new Monster Mill.

I probably brewed over a dozen brews with the corona mill and my efficiency was usually around 65 %. I adjusted all my recipes in Beersmith and I have made really good beer with this low efficiency. I grew tired or holding the corona, and a drill, and stopping to refill the hopper every couple pounds. So I purchased the 1.5" Monster Mill, built a hopper, and motorized it with a 1/2 horsepower motor. I used a couple pulleys to reduce the speed to a couple hundred rpm.

I have brewed two beers with the new Monster Mill, both with recipes with the efficiency at 65%. I expected to overshoot this efficiency on both beers, add water and hops to compensate and have more beer in the end. Sadly, I am still around 65%. Which was okay for 5 gallons of beer, but I want to get my efficiency up.

On the first beer I thought maybe the rollers moved while milling, resulting in a poor crush. So on the second batch of beer I set and measured the gap at .0375 and checked again after the milling and it was spot on. The crush looks good and I see several half and quarter size grains. The mill wont pull grain through at .035 but will at .0375.

Because the efficiency didn't go up with the new Monster mill, maybe my problem is elsewhere.

___

I'll give some background on my habits and maybe someone can spot my mistakes. Any home brewer I know brews extract still, so I've never had a trained eye to help me out.

Brew Day
1. I heat 10-15 gallons of strike water in my keggle with dial thermometer that I have adjusted at boil and near strike temps.
2. I us my chugger pump to pump several gallons of water through the output of the round cooler MLT and let sit for a few minutes to preheat the MLT.
3. I dump the MLT water back into the keggle and reheat the keggle to strike temp if need be.
4. I slowly pump water through the ball valve of the cooler MLT and begin slowly adding grain from a bucket in one hand, while aggressively stirring with my wood spoon.
5. After my keggle loses enough water for strike, I shut off the pump and continue to stir for 5 minutes.
6. I check the temp with a digital thermometer and adjust temp as need be.
7. I l let the MLT sit for 1 hour.
8. Vorlauf a gallon or so.
9. Trickle out MLT to boil keggle. This takes 30-60 minutes
10. Add 172° batch water a single time.
11. Stir up for a couple minutes.
12. Vorlauf a gallon or so.
13. Trickle out MLT.
14. Add more water at 172° if necessary to reach pre-boil volume.
15. Check pre-boil OG with refractometer after lots of stirring, and recheck a couple times.

I think that about covers what I am doing. Can anyone see any mistakes or things I can improve on? I've thought about fly sparging, but there seems to be many batch spargers (Denny Conn) that get good efficiency consistently. I will eventually fly sparge once I build my eherms.

It is really bugging me that I can not get 75% efficiency. I've read many post about low OG and haven't found anything that stands out. I figured that as I learned from my mistakes while brewing all grain that my efficiency would gradually increase with knowledge and experience, but it has remained consistent.

I appreciate any and all feedback because I could be missing something that seems obvious to some, but not to me.

Thank you,
Craig

What water to grain ratio are you using for your strike water? I use 1.25 quarts/pound. I also perform two separate batch sparges and typically get about 80% efficiency into the kettle. But I also use a corona mill for grinding the grains. Perhaps your crush is not as fine as it could be. Or you are not effectively rinsing the grain of leftover sugars.

Do you have a friend or LHBS with a mill? Give your next recipe a run through someone's mill twice. At least you'll know if its the crush after that. Finally, what are you using to calculate your recipes?

Thank you for the replies.

I use the strike water volume that Beersmith suggests. I looked a couple recipes up and they were around 1.25-1.3 quarts of water per pound of grain. I generally use one batch sparge, unless I need more volume to reach my recommended pre-boil volume. Would doing a second batch sparge help my efficiency?

I have used mills from two different LHBS and still get around 65% efficiency. Ones of these LHBS swears by their mill and claims that they get great efficiency with their mill.

I calculate everything through Beersmith. Has this been a reliable method for others? I haven't heard one way or the other. If this could be an issue, I could post a beersmith recipe and see if someone sees a problem.

-
Craig

I hit beersmith dead-on and have a freakishly consistent system with a 77% efficiency. Basically do BIAB but put the bag in a strainer over the pot and pour it through a few times.

A second sparge might help. One final though would be to check your final volumes and your beersmith setup. You might have volumes that are off.

When I do one gallon batches, I calculate for 70% Like I said, I get 77% everytime but I am basically leaving 10% volume out of my batch out for hydrometer sample, tasting, and just general loss. So it works for me to get my numbers

Hello,

Calichusetts - What do you mean check your volumes?

I understand that if you make more beer with same efficiency and grain you will get a lower OG. But I usually end up with 5ish gallons of beer when done, so my volumes should be okay right?

I calculate my recipes and use enough grain for 5.5 gallons of finished beer. I do this, to compensate for loss in my heat exchanger and what I don't get out of my boil kettle.

Thank you for the help,
Craig

If you are using beersmith or recipes and calculate to have 5 gallons of wort at at certain OG...if you end up with more wort, the OG should be lower for the recipe. It may seem like you have really low efficiency but you might just have a more diluted, higher volume of wort with a lower OG.

Here is an example:

You want 5 gallons of wort with an OG of 1.050 and have calucated in beersmith for, say 70% brewhouse efficiency.

You end your boil, you actually have 5.5 gallons, but with transfering, cooling, etc, you end up with 5 gallons.

But, you actually ended your boil with 10% more volume than said recipe, which most likely means a 10% lower OG, 1.045, which would lead you to think your efficiency is 63%

Most recipes are calculated for the volume going into the fermenter but you still need to dail in your system so that x volume going in there is hitting the correct OG

Just make sure you have beersmith correctly set up in to relate to the proper numbers. This is just a thought on what is going on. You seem to have everything down and you really should not have efficiency that low. Seems like you had some temp issues during the mash the first time. Hit your mash temp and see how things go on the next run.

Good luck.

Thank you for the help.

I set up all my recipes for 5.5 gallons to compensate for the loss in lines, pump, and the heat exchange. If I am using a recipe from another brewer, I adjust the gravity in Beersmith and it automatically increases the grain bill.

I would think that my calculations of efficiency should be on related to volume, unless I am leaving more than expected in the kettle, lines, and heat exchange.

Is there anywhere I could be missing some loss? How much volume does everyone else add to their recipe?

-
Craig

Oh man I know this is a silly question but I have to ask - does your hydrometer read 1.000 in plain water?

Malty Dog - I don't think there can be a silly question, because I feel like I am missing something obvious every time my efficiency is 65%. I really thought the new Monster Mill would make a big difference, but it has not. Although the ease of the motorized mill is awesome and worth every penny.

I am using my refractometer, but did read 1.000 with water when it was knew. I will be sure to check again, as maybe it is off now. Wouldn't that be an easy fix eh! When I brew my next batch in the next couple weeks, I will check with the hydrometer and refractometer to compare.

I will also do two batch sparges to try and help. Can anyone else recommend any other improvements I should try?

Thank you,
Craig

I was looking through my brew notes and realized that my efficiency is incrementally lower with high gravity beers. When I attempt a beer with an of 1.075 to 1.090, by efficiency is even lower than 65%.

Wouldn't this point to a mash issue and not a volume issue? Maybe my temps are still off? I have calibrated my HLT thermometer and I use a pencil style digital thermometer after I have the grain in and stirred for 5 minutes. Is this an accurate way to measure the mash temp?

-
Craig

I went for a bigger beer with an estimated OG of 1.083 with 20.5 pounds of grain.

I ran the grain through my monster mill twice.

I checked my thermometers for accuracy.

I mashed in with 7.5 gallons. After an hour, I mashed out quickly and got 4.25 gallons. I stirred this around in the keggle and measured it at 1.076. Shouldn't this initial running be higher with this much grain????

1st Batch Sparge - I added 3 gallons at 168° water. Let sit 10 minutes, and quickly drained off a gallon into a separate container and measured at 1.049. Drained rest off into keggle to a total volume of 8 gallons at 1.063.

2nd Batch Sparge - Added 2 gallons of 168° water, and let sit 10 minutes. I ran a half gallon off and measured this at 1.029. I drained .6 gallons into the keggle.

My pre-boil volume was 8.6 gallons and my pre boil gravity at 1.061. Beersmith tells me this is a mash efficiency of 69.8%. This isn't bad, but not great.

I boiled for 90 minutes and ended up with 5.25 gallons in the fermenter at 1.071 OG. But I did realize that my bazooka tube was clogged with hops and I left 1 gallon the keggle. So my total OG including this and what was left in the lines and HX was real close to 6.5 gallons at 1.071 which gives me an "Ending Kettle Efficiency" of 62%

I calculated my brewhouse efficiency at 61.27%.

I need to upgrade my keggle to pick more wort up, but even before this I am below 70% mash efficiency and 62% kettle efficiency. Any ideas where I am going wrong?

What water are you using? Possibly your water chemistry is off enough to interfere with the mashing process.

The_Bishop said:

What water are you using? Possibly your water chemistry is off enough to interfere with the mashing process.

Click to expand...

We have great water in the Portland area and we have more breweries than any other city in the world. From what I've read, many of these breweries don't mess with the water chemistry. Maybe this was bad information? I've never looked any further into our water.

Here is what I found on our water. Not sure if this is any help.

Should I look into my water more?

That report doesn't help; there's nothing in that regarding the minerals/salts that directly effect brewing.

The one thing I took away is that your water does contain chlorine and chloramines. At a minimum you need to deal with that issue.

If your water is high in alkalinity, it is very possible that your mash isn't in the correct PH range, which will hinder conversion.

Perhaps you should start with a standard gravity beer, and use bottled water. Higher gravity tends toward lower efficiency.

What are you using to formulate your recipes? If your water volumes are off the gravity measurements will be off as well.

The_Bishop said:

That report doesn't help; there's nothing in that regarding the minerals/salts that directly effect brewing.

The one thing I took away is that your water does contain chlorine and chloramines. At a minimum you need to deal with that issue.

If your water is high in alkalinity, it is very possible that your mash isn't in the correct PH range, which will hinder conversion.

Perhaps you should start with a standard gravity beer, and use bottled water. Higher gravity tends toward lower efficiency.

What are you using to formulate your recipes? If your water volumes are off the gravity measurements will be off as well.

Click to expand...

Thank you for your help.

I read somewhere that the chlorine in water will dissipate if you let the water sit for 24 hours. Is this true? I fill my HLT with water 24 hours before brewing for this purpose.

I think I may have figured out the biggest problem with efficiency. I believe it was my crush as most people suggested. Which seems strange to me as two different LHBS claimed that their mills produce great efficiency in the 80s%.

When I set my 1.5" monster mill up I used some old grain I had laying around because I didn't want to waste some nice fresh grain. I think this grain was hardened from age. I set mill very close together and progressively backed my mill apart until the grain would be pulled through and this was at .037". So I thought that my mill couldn't mill grain finer than .037" and that the crush wasn't the problem. Well yesterday I attempted to close the gap to .032" and run a batch of grain. It went through with no problem and I got 76.1% mash efficiency. I used some rice hulls to make sure I didn't get a stuck sparge and this was great.

Thank you everyone for help and I look forward to improving even more ever batch of beer.

-
Craig

are you talking about brewhouse efficiency or mash efficiency?

Also, are you adjusting for wort temp when you calc the gravity?

geckholm said:

are you talking about brewhouse efficiency or mash efficiency?

Also, are you adjusting for wort temp when you calc the gravity?

Click to expand...

Hello,

I am shooting for better mash efficiency in this page. Although on the last batch I got good mash efficiency but my end of boil efficiency was poor and I am talking about it here.

I am using this refractometer and the small test sample should cool within a couple seconds to get a good reading. Is this correct?

-
Craig

ontum said:

Hello,

I am shooting for better mash efficiency in this page. Although on the last batch I got good mash efficiency but my end of boil efficiency was poor and I am talking about it here.

I am using this refractometer and the small test sample should cool within a couple seconds to get a good reading. Is this correct?

-
Craig

Click to expand...

ok, was thinking I could help a bit, but I don't use a refractometer so I'd be making stuff up!

I visited Portland, ME brewery Rising Tide last Summer, I mentioned my low efficiency. They told me to try some acidulated malt at about 3% of the mash, they said it lowered their mash pH and skyrocketed their efficiency.

Lactic acid would do the same thing, I have no experience with it though.

There are many ways to reduce mash pH and that is just one that was recommended to me.