1st all-grain upset.. missed gravities

Well about 15 batches into my AG adventure I finally had a nice hiccup.

Ordered up AHS' Weihephsteiner clone and decided to add in 1/2lb Crystal 10L into the recipe as well. Mashed at 150* for 60min per the recipe and collected 7.25gallons. Boiled it down to 5.5g and ended up with a final gravity of 1.039 Per the instructions it should have been 1.053, and thats not including the 10L i added.

Not sure what went wrong as I usually average about 70-73% effeciency, and i'm sure this recipe was calculated for somewhere in that range. Also was my first time brewing a wheat beer. Also was the first time in a long time i've done a store bought kit.

Sucks

How was the crush? When was the last you calibrated your therm? those are first two things I'd look at.

Yankeehillbrewer said:

How was the crush? When was the last you calibrated your therm? those are first two things I'd look at.

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I did 2 beers the same day, the hefe above was the 2nd. The first one I used all the same equipment and got 72%. Grains came from AHS with the one before as well

I know you're working from a kit but using software like Promash or Beersmith can take ALOT of the guesswork out of all grain brewing.

eschatz said:

I know you're working from a kit but using software like Promash or Beersmith can take ALOT of the guesswork out of all grain brewing.

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I use beersmith for all my brews (except this one)

Like i was saying.. it's the first kit i've bought in a loooong time. I just wanted to try it out since I love Weihephsteiner (sp?)

riored4v said:

I did 2 beers the same day, the hefe above was the 2nd. The first one I used all the same equipment and got 72%. Grains came from AHS with the one before as well

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Maybe the grains were measured incorrectly on the 2nd one.

Yankeehillbrewer said:

Maybe the grains were measured incorrectly on the 2nd one.

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I guess i could see that being a possibility. I just dont understand how my effeciency could have gone to crap considering everything went smoothly and i nailed all my temps dead-on.

I've never made a hefe before so the thought of converting the wheat (red wheat in this case) being harder crossed my mind as well.

What kind of thermometer do you have? I know on my old one it was great for the first beer, but after getting wet the probe was off by as much as 15 deg readings until I baked the probe. I recently purchased this thermometer off eBay in hopes of having accurate temp readings. New JMS Type K Thermocouple Thermometer with 36" sensor - eBay (item 230364447742 end time Aug-15-09 13:49:40 PDT)

WC87 said:

What kind of thermometer do you have? I know on my old one it was great for the first beer, but after getting wet the probe was off by as much as 15 deg readings until I baked the probe. I recently purchased this thermometer off eBay in hopes of having accurate temp readings. New JMS Type K Thermocouple Thermometer with 36" sensor - eBay (item 230364447742 end time Aug-15-09 13:49:40 PDT)

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Its a Blichman on the keg. The mash one is a beer/wine floating one that i just stuff in the mash.