first all grain ever. low gravity. advice please?

Well Just did my first All Grain.

I think it ended up with to much water. My Gravity was 1.032.

Should I top up with some dextrose, do I just leave it alone and drink it?

What do you recommend?

Please list your ingredients and oz/lbs

Yep, can't do much without the recipe/yeast.

Keep boiling, I'd rather have 3 gallons of good beer than 5 gallons of weak beer. From what I've learned, it you have 5 gallons at 1.032, multiply volume times gravity (5x32=160) . now take the 160 gravity units and divide by say, 3.5 gallons (160/3.5=45.7) or 1.046.

Sorry for the late reply. I just went ahead and fermented it.

Check out the video if your interested.



Thanks for your help everyone.

That was interesting. If you feel like reading something, Deathbrewer has a very informative guide to brewing all-grains by stove top. I'd follow it, seeing how it is very similar to your technique.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-stovetop-all-grain-brewing-pics-90132/

I would leave it alone and drink it!

I have a feeling that the main issue with low gravity is that your mash temp is too low. It looks like you mashed in at the mashing temperature, when you should be mashing in a few degrees higher. Check http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml for proper strike temperature. Just plugging in rough numbers, your strike water should have been 160. I've also had success with just wrapping towels around the pot during mashing, and not lost a degree in an hour.

Also, during the chilling process you should be stirring the wort to chill it faster.

I agree with fugazzi, plus you probably left a fair bit of sugar in the grain bag by just draining.
Were your grains crushed? In looking at the video it looke to me that your grains were not crushed but it could have just been my low quality PC!

Looks like you are on the right track, a scale is definitely in order, plus a little reading up maybe, how to brew online is great source of info!!

Good luck!

Thanks guys.


I squeezed the bag out but that may not have been good enough I guess. The grains were definitely crushed. This was just a for fun batch. I'm not expecting great results.

I haven't watched the whole video yet, but just by doing rough metric to US conversions, your gravity shouldn't have been very high to begin with.

10L batch (~2.6 gallons), just over 2000 grams (around 4-4.5lbs) of grain.

Really, even with 70% efficiency you'd only be looking at 1.040 - 1.045 as it is.

As others mentioned, low strike temperature probably has a lot to do with it. You may be surprised, I'm sure it'll taste just fine

You've got the main ideas down just fine...just read up a bit on mash temps and you'll be golden

+1 on what others have said about mash temps, also like others said you lost a lot of sugars by not doing a dunk sparge and rinsing those sugars.

Also with all grain and full boils you really have to stir the hell out of the wort to also get an accurate gravity reading.

Good luck, I bet it will turn out fine. I do BIAB all grain all the time and after a few tries I get 80% eff. Read deathbrewers post and also get yourself a scale. Even a cheap diet scale would be better than nothing.

I didn't get good, consistent efficiencies until I started taking really good notes and lots of careful measurements (volumes, temperatures, etc.) at several points during the brewing process. I made lots of tweaks, but all were suggested by looking at the data.

good tips by all!

Thank you!!

Why did you boil with the lid on? I've heard that the steam from the boil releases tannins, which you don't want in your beer. Here is a good video series that will help ya.

Wanted to pass along a tip from a fellow new brewer: Check your thermometer. When I first got mine, I tested it and it was money. Somewhere between batches 3 and 4 (i think), it broke and is now reading 12-14 degrees below where it should be. So I made my last 3 batches like this.

Test yours in boiling water or in the oven at a set temp or if you have a second thermometer, check one against the other.

I know have 2 and look to get back on path this Sunday with a Bavarian Hefeweizen.

mellogrfx said:

Why did you boil with the lid on? I've heard that the steam from the boil releases tannins, which you don't want in your beer.

Click to expand...

Well thats just the camera angle, the lid was on an angle. there was a good 2 inch gap between the pot and the lid