Feeling discouraged need help!

Hi Guys Ive been brewing great extract and partial mashes for about 3 years now and decided to start all grain. Over the past few months Ive built a 6 tap keezer with perlick faucets, built a 50ft chiller, made a keggle, Ive converted a 10 gallon mash tun, Ive bought a mill , etc etc and I have read and been excited to start. Well yesterday I set up my burner got all my ingredients and heading out to the yard and spent hours just excited about my new setup and next step in brewing. I did everything I read but of course it was my first time so somethings need tuner. Well I come to the very end and got NOTHING for a reading and had the beer look and taste like water. So i figured wtf ill just do another batch while i have everything out....well you guess it and once again got nothing for an OG.

I believe some of this may have to do with sparging because thats the only part maybe im not fully clear on. I thought the recipe would come with the amount of mash water and sparge water needed but it didnt so I used the guidelines in charlie's book for water ratios.

I am so bummed. I really wanted to have beer flowing for an upcoming party and now I got water!! I feel like grabbing an extract kit Im so discouraged. I have spent so much time and money making sure I was ready for this and now Im feeling blah. What are some key things i need to make sure I do?

It took me months of reading before I was sure I knew what I was doing when doing my first A/G brew.

Sounds like the mash/sparge did'nt convert starches to sugars. I do a fly sparge and start with water anywhere from 165-175 which settles down to 150-160 once it stabilizes. Then let it hang out for an hour and do its thing. Vorlauf, drain, and add additional water to get to my desired boil volume.
I was sooo confused until I read a few books, and now i have confidence and am hitting about 70% effeciency everytime.

Could you give more details about your grain crush and your mash? Mash temps? Sparge temps? Amount of grain?

Hard to diagnose a problem without the basic information...

http://www.suebob.com/brew/Bobby_Mallgrainprimer.pdf
http://www.hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

If you read and understand those 2 primers on AG I think things will be clear for you.
Try not to take advice from too many sources as it will confuse everything. It's really a very simple process when you block out all the extra details that confuse the issue. Also use an online brewing calculator to figure your recipe volumes. There are many to choose from, just google it. Or better yet invest in BeerTools or Beer Smith, etc.

I did a wheat kit from northerbrewer Id have to look at recipe to know exact grain bill but i followed the chart. I took say 7lbs of grains that came crushed and mixed them in with approx 1.75gal of 170deg water then let it rest around 154 but did have some temp problems. then i let it sit for 60 min while i brought 3.5 g of water to 170. then i opened the valve on the mashtun and waiting til only an inch was left and started letting the 170 deg water into the mash tun from a tube that i had at a slow flow over grains. I then collected everything plus 1.5 gallons and began my boil. What do ya think?

samc, I have tried to download software but having issues with finding one for the mac , any ideas?

IMO, it's nearly impossible to not achieve at least a partial conversion and something other than a zero OG reading. You say you have a mill, so I must assume that you actually milled the malt before mashing. Was the grain you used actually malt and not just plain un-malted barley? Was the grain bill made up entirely of crystal or highly kilned malt? Those lack the enzymes needed for conversion. I'm guessing that there was something wrong with the malt, but I'm not at all sure what that might be. So long as your mash temperatures were somewhere in the ball park you should have gotten some conversion and something other than a zero OG as a result. This is a very unusual situation and even more so as it happened twice in a row.

Let's have a look at your recipe. That may reveal something.

Even with problems controlling your mash temperature you should have gotten some extract from the grain. Twice in a row on top of that is really odd.... Are you sure your hydrometer isn't broken?

Also, next time you might want to consider the iodine-starch test for conversion.

Ok that reading really helped. I think I def sparged wrong. I started draining my wort before adding sparge water? Also I am getting iodine strips today for my next brew. I got 1 kit crushed and 1 not so I dont think its the mill, the hydrometer appears fine but I can grab a new one of those for the hell of it too. I really think it had something to do with sparging. So now I have 10 gallons of who knows what , is there anything i can add to fix this?

1620HBC said:

Ok that reading really helped. I think I def sparged wrong. I started draining my wort before adding sparge water? Also I am getting iodine strips today for my next brew. I got 1 kit crushed and 1 not so I dont think its the mill, the hydrometer appears fine but I can grab a new one of those for the hell of it too. I really think it had something to do with sparging. So now I have 10 gallons of who knows what , is there anything i can add to fix this?

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Just test the hydrometer in pure water, should read 1.000.

all grain wheat from northernbrewer

-- 4-lbs.-Rahr-White-Wheat-malt-- -- 4-lbs-Rahr-2-row-Pale- 1oz willamette 1oz cascade
60 min rest 152deg 10 min 170deg 60 min boil

1620HBC said:

I think I def sparged wrong. I started draining my wort before adding sparge water?

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You should still have gotten SOMETHING on your gravity reading.

Is there a digital hydrometer out there? Im sick of these little glass things!!

Probably nothing much you can do at this point. Even if you did manage to salvage it to some degree and produce something fermentable, the beer produced would likely not be very good at all.

You should be able to taste the sugar in the runoff. The wort will be quite sweet if everything is going right. You can use Iodophor for the iodine test if you have any on hand. It would be very unusual for a hydrometer to fail, unless it were cracked. Some may not be well calibrated, but they also should not be very far off.

Even a no-sparge runoff should produce some sweet wort. Actually, the runoff from a no-sparge should be extra sweet as it would not be diluted at all. It should be malt syrup. I'm now thinking that you may have overshot the mash temperatures and denatured the enzymes. You would have to hit something like 170F for ten minutes or so to do that, so this would also be hard to do unintentionally. This whole thing has me puzzled.

Unless you want to spend some large bucks, stick with the glass hydrometer. They are generally very reliable and easy to use. You may want to get a refractometer though. They are very handy for fast and easy gravity checks.

Just to make sure, what temperature was the wort when you took the gravity reading? Higher temperatures will give a lower reading, some people overlook/ forget about this.

1620HBC said:

all grain wheat from northernbrewer

-- 4-lbs.-Rahr-White-Wheat-malt-- -- 4-lbs-Rahr-2-row-Pale- 1oz willamette 1oz cascade
60 min rest 152deg 10 min 170deg 60 min boil

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The grain bill looks to be OK. Hopefully the wheat was actually malted wheat as described, but even if it was raw wheat you should have gotten at least some conversion.

1620HBC said:

samc, I have tried to download software but having issues with finding one for the mac , any ideas?

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I am using BeerTools Pro for the MAC, they a have a trial version http://www.beertools.com/

Temp was under 70 when took reading, the wort looked and tasted like water

Are you sure your thermometer is accurate? I had one of the floating ones that was more than 5 degrees off at 150 degrees. After discovering that, I bought a lab thermometer and now use that to calibrate the thermometers I use for brewing.

1620HBC said:

Temp was under 70 when took reading, the wort looked and tasted like water

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Looked like water also? That's just weird. Maybe its a thermometer issue? I just dont understand how you would get no reading (was it actually 1.000?). I'm not sure the water profile could be responsible for such a lack of conversion, unless the water is extremely basic with little to no Calcium or Magnesium...

I don't do a mashout for certain beers. I just vorlauf and drain...I get spot on gravity every time. So even without the mash out you would at least have something.

I say your hydrometer is messed up or your thermometer is messed up and you mashed super high. But you should have SOME indication of gravity.

Can you write up your process as specific as possible for us? Exactly as you remember it, this could help us diagnose any issues.

I use beer alchemy, its designed for mac and has that "macish" look to it

Ya its a new digital themometer i picked up from northern brewer

I always drain my first runnings before I add my sparge water and have always hit my numbers. What kind of manifold/FB are you using in your MLT?

I'm no expert, but I want to join the call for a detailed write up of your process. This is too strange -- we definitely need to know more specifics.

And just to be clear, when you say:

1620HBC said:

the wort looked and tasted like water

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do you mean that your first runnings came out clear and colorless? Did you only notice something was off after you finished the boil...or was it coming out of the mash tun "looking and tasting" like water??

you could always tell people it is a Michelob Ultra clone.

We must know more! You say that your wort looked and tasted like water, and that just seemed impossible to me.

I'd like to see some pics of the equipment!

Take the crushed grain, and mix with hot water in the mash tun so that it comes to 154 degrees F and let sit for one hour. Start to drain it slowly and collect in a small container. When it starts to run pretty clear, move to draining in kettle and carefully pour the small container back on top of the grain in the mlt.

Mix some more water (at 168 degrees) into the mlt and let sit 5-10 minutes. Drain using same vorlauf method as before. Repeat if desired.

You should have gotten some enzyme activation from the 2-row at any rate! If your temps were WAY off, maybe not. Test the thermometer in a glass of water filled with crushed ice. It should settle down to JUST over 32 degrees.

I'm assuming you know how to use a hydrometer since you've done a bunch of extract brews. But test it's calibration in a sample of distilled or RO water.

It's just weird you didn't get any sugars out of that brew!

1620HBC, if you're totally serious, then my apologies in advance for what I'm about to type.

I think this is a joke. I mean, if I put 8 lbs of unmilled grain in my cooler, put a few gallons of cold water, and drained immediately, the result wouldn't look like water. Sure, it wouldn't make beer, but it would at least be somewhat opaque.

This can't happen. Even if all you do is put some malted barley in
a glass and add warm water, after 30 minutes if you taste the
liquid it will be sweet. Did they send you unmalted barley by mistake?

Otherwise, I suggest you return to extract brewing!

Ray