Dang OG!!!

Brewed a Honey Amber Ale today. Batch size is 15gal.

We brew on a 1bbl system; we figured today that we lose 3gal from mash to boil and 3gal from boil to fermenter, this is what is below the false bottom. We could tilt it to get more, but we figured this in to our losses.

Ok, so our target OG for the brew was 1.052, and we hit 1.043

Grain bill was 31lbs. We mashed with 10gal. Then we sparged with 19gal (16gal minus the losses)

I can't figure out why we were so far off. Temps were spot on the whole time.

My thought is I am somehow not figuring out the losses/mash volume, and sparge volume correctly??

Any thoughts?

Did you get complete conversion from the starch? If so, what was the SG of the final runnings from the mash? The SG of the wort remaining in the mash tun is at your final runoff SG, so it should be negligible unless you had a sparging problem. If you are doing fly sparging, check for channeling in the grain bed. With batch sparging, check that you are stirring the sparge water in sufficiently. Grain crush is a possible source of the error.

In the past I have scooped the spent grain out of the mash tun and tasted it from several locations to check sweetness. When I found a sweet area it was due to channeling from a plugged section of manifold.

Our target SG was 1.040 and we came up short at 1.032

I think our grain crush was good

Grain retains about .1 gallons per pound.

Are you saying that is your 3 gallons of loss. Or is there also 3 gallons of dead space in the mash tun?

m1k3 said:

Grain retains about .1 gallons per pound.

Are you saying that is your 3 gallons of loss. Or is there also 3 gallons of dead space in the mash tun?

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We figured in the .1gal prior, the 3 gallons is dead space under the false bottom in the mash tun

Bump! Any more feedback??

For what its worth: The last 3 batches, I missed my numbers also. Grind, good. Temps, good. Times good. Went crazy trying to find out what went wrong. As it turns out, my digital thermometer was reading WAY off. I use only analog ones now, and lots of them.

You might be leaving the most concentrated part of the mash behind in the mash tun.

I used to have a mashtun withiut bottom drain...
After a bad effichency i decided to check and found a good layer of syrup in the bottom of the deadspace

I'd bet you're leaving behind more than 3 gallons in your dead space/mash tun. Assuming your thermometers are reasonably correct and your mash was 100% converted, I'd just adjust your recipe to account for the additional loss.

cabron99 said:

For what its worth: The last 3 batches, I missed my numbers also. Grind, good. Temps, good. Times good. Went crazy trying to find out what went wrong. As it turns out, my digital thermometer was reading WAY off. I use only analog ones now, and lots of them.

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+1 I'd done a English bitter ale I'd done 3 times before and the third time, it was way off, turns out I was using a different thermometer and it was wrong. Needed to calibrate them a little more often.

We filled the tun with the drain open, at 3gal she began to leak out.

That's a good thought on the concentration being left at the bottom; I wonder what could be done to get this out??? Tilting the tun would stir up the grain bed

Maybe adjusting the recipe is the best bet?!

rhsanborn said:

+1 I'd done a English bitter ale I'd done 3 times before and the third time, it was way off, turns out I was using a different thermometer and it was wrong. Needed to calibrate them a little more often.

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We use analogs. Had a heck of a time with digital in the past :/

brentt03 said:

We filled the tun with the drain open, at 3gal she began to leak out.

That's a good thought on the concentration being left at the bottom; I wonder what could be done to get this out??? Tilting the tun would stir up the grain bed

Maybe adjusting the recipe is the best bet?!

Click to expand...

You guys are probably using pumps, so maybe a quick disconnect before the pump. Then when your finished sparging disconnect the hose a gravity feed the rest into a seperate kettle

A dip tube will help, just make sure the outlet is below if your not using a pump

Lowering the false bottom or manifold is where I'd start, if it's possible. If it's a manifold, you gotta get that down to the bottom. If it's a false bottom, a dip tube that goes to the bottom will take care of it.

I'm thinking a batch that large, to compensate with more grain will be pricey and a modification of your mash tun will be far cheaper in the long run.

kylevester said:

Lowering the false bottom or manifold is where I'd start, if it's possible. If it's a manifold, you gotta get that down to the bottom. If it's a false bottom, a dip tube that goes to the bottom will take care of it.

I'm thinking a batch that large, to compensate with more grain will be pricey and a modification of your mash tun will be far cheaper in the long run.

Click to expand...

^^^ This. Get a dip tube configured under that false bottom. If you are not direct firing it, a bottom drain would work too.