Bad first all grain brew day

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brewhokie

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So I finally made the leap to all-grain. I've got around 10 batches using extracts and partial mashes under my belt, they've all turned out pretty good to great. I'm using a 10 gal round cooler with stainless braid as my mash tun.

The recipe I brewed called for 7.5 lbs of pilsner, .5 lbs of munich, .5 lbs of vienna, .25 lbs of carapils. My mash was a single infusion with a mash out. My target temp was 154, so I heated 2.75 gal water to 175, preheated the tun, let it drop to 167 which was my strike temp according to beersmith. Hit 153.5 prefect, checked back a few times, after an hour temp was holding at 153.

Heated 1.5 gal to 189 (according to beersmith) mashout temp hit 166, let it sit for 10 minutes.

Recirculated, drained first runnings, added 2.5 gals of sparge water @ 165. Let sit for 10 minutes, recirculated, drained second runnings.

Boiled for 60 minutes down to 5.5 gal. This is where things went to crap.

-It was my first time using my counterflow chiller. I made it DIY using instructions on this site. My ground water temp is pretty high here, so I used my old stainless immersion chiller as a pre chiller. No matter how much I slowed the flow through the chiller i couldn't get me wort temp below 80. The water coming out of the pre chiller was at 62, so whats going on with that?

-After chilling I took a hydrometer reading 1.029, which adjusted is still only 1.031. I hit all of my temps pretty close, I checked conversion using the iodine test and every thing looked good. The crush was pretty crappy, and I know it can be a big issue, but I only got like 55ish% efficiency???

I got the grains crushed at my LHBS and I don't really have the funds at the moment to purchase a mill. I purchased grain for a future batch and the crush is just as bad, is there anything I can do to get a better crush on these grains? Is there a tactful way to telling the LHBS there crush sucks and see if they can adjust there mill?

Sorry for the novel, I'm pretty bummed because my other brews have turned out so well. I appreciate your suggestions.
 
The key here is to be checking your gravities as you go. Check your first runnings, your sparge, and your preboil volume. If you are off your numbers, you can either decide to go with a smaller batch or use DME to bump up the wort density. A refractometer is handy for doing this, but it isn't essential.

If you have on-going efficiency troubles, you can always use the efficiency trouble shooting guide at braukaiser.com. Just glimpsing here, crush is definitely a possibility, though make sure you stir like crazy when you first add your sparge water.

Make sure it really is a crush issue before you jump to that conclusion. Best of luck in the future!
 
Speaking from experience on screwy counterflow chillers...

You said that you made it DIY. Does this mean that you made a copper coil inside of a larger PVC pipe and had water running in the direction opposite the flow of your wort?

One trick I heard of is inserting a smaller empty PVC pipe into the void area of your copper pipe coil, thereby increasing the flow of water past the copper tubing, if you catch my meaning. Obviously you'll have to have some space in between the copper pipe and the empty pipe in the middle, and put some caps on the empty pipe in the middle, and maybe partially fill it with some sand or rocks so it doesn't float. Use some wires to suspend the empty pipe in the middle of your copper tubing.
 
You can pickup a corona grain mill for about 15 bucks. This really increased my efficiency from the LHBS crushing the grain for me.
 
If you are buying from a local store, inspect the crush before you pay for it. If there are lots of whole kernels there, point it out to them and ask them to run it through again.
 
Heated 1.5 gal to 189

Recirculated, drained first runnings, added 2.5 gals of sparge water

Boiled for 60 minutes down to 5.5 gal.
Click to expand...

How in the world did you boil down to 5.5gal if you started with 4 gal in the pot at the beginning of the boil?


EDIT! never mind me. can't read, been drinking. whenever I have trouble with mash efficiency, its because I'm running off too fast. If I take 60-90 min to runoff (fly sparge) its great. if I rush it, it sucks.
 
brewhokie said:
So I finally made the leap to all-grain. I've got around 10 batches using extracts and partial mashes under my belt, they've all turned out pretty good to great. I'm using a 10 gal round cooler with stainless braid as my mash tun.

The recipe I brewed called for 7.5 lbs of pilsner, .5 lbs of munich, .5 lbs of vienna, .25 lbs of carapils. My mash was a single infusion with a mash out. My target temp was 154, so I heated 2.75 gal water to 175, preheated the tun, let it drop to 167 which was my strike temp according to beersmith. Hit 153.5 prefect, checked back a few times, after an hour temp was holding at 153.

Heated 1.5 gal to 189 (according to beersmith) mashout temp hit 166, let it sit for 10 minutes.

Recirculated, drained first runnings, added 2.5 gals of sparge water @ 165. Let sit for 10 minutes, recirculated, drained second runnings.

Boiled for 60 minutes down to 5.5 gal. This is where things went to crap.

-It was my first time using my counterflow chiller. I made it DIY using instructions on this site. My ground water temp is pretty high here, so I used my old stainless immersion chiller as a pre chiller. No matter how much I slowed the flow through the chiller i couldn't get me wort temp below 80. The water coming out of the pre chiller was at 62, so whats going on with that?

-After chilling I took a hydrometer reading 1.029, which adjusted is still only 1.031. I hit all of my temps pretty close, I checked conversion using the iodine test and every thing looked good. The crush was pretty crappy, and I know it can be a big issue, but I only got like 55ish% efficiency???

I got the grains crushed at my LHBS and I don't really have the funds at the moment to purchase a mill. I purchased grain for a future batch and the crush is just as bad, is there anything I can do to get a better crush on these grains? Is there a tactful way to telling the LHBS there crush sucks and see if they can adjust there mill?

Sorry for the novel, I'm pretty bummed because my other brews have turned out so well. I appreciate your suggestions.
Click to expand...

that doesnt mean it will taste bad, just that it will be a lower ABV!
 
I had a similar situation with similar results for my first all grain. It was the crush...

I had to grow a set and discuss this with my LHBS. Turns out it was someting they knew about and that particular mill needs almost constant adjustment. They just expect you to look at your grain before leaving (which is something you should do anyways).

Another of my LHBS has a mill that pretty much always works great... I still double check though.

Once I fixed the crush issue my efficiancy has consistently been between 75% and 80% which is just fine with me.
 
So a couple of thoughts:

-I think I left a little liquid from my sparge in the tun. I have an 8 gal pot, but 6.75 gal is about the max I feel comfortable before entering boil over territory. I hadn't drained the tun, so thats obviously an issue. Left maybe a quart in the tun.

-I'll post a picture of the grain I have for my next batch, let the experts decide. If the crush really is a problem do you think there is anything wrong with taking it back and asking them to re crush it. The place it right down the road.

-I'm still trying to figure out the issue with my chiller. It seems like other don't have the same problem. How slow is your flow from the boil kettle? I had my valve about 1/3 open.

As always thanks for the help you guys rock!
 
I had a similar issue last week.
My 2nd All grain, the first went great without any problems.
But this one, my efficiently was only 50%. On top of that, I used beersmith to calculate boil off, and ended up with 2 extra gallons. If that wasn't enough, my fermenting freezer decided to quit, so I am fermenting a light beer christmas ale at 80F. I plan on bottling this weekend, think it is salvageable?
 
Not too worried, even with low efficiency it could be an excellent lawnmower beer. Just want to keep from repeating the same mistakes.

I feel like you really have to try to screw up beer, or get really unlucky. After a few homebrews I accidentally dry hopped my stout instead of my imperial IPA. They certainly weren't to style and not what I expected, but they were certainly drinkable.
 
One thing you may want to look at is your thermometer, I was using a remote probe thermometer and randomly getting low efficiency...once I upgraded to a better thermometer, no problems.
 
brewhokie said:
So a couple of thoughts:

-I think I left a little liquid from my sparge in the tun. I have an 8 gal pot, but 6.75 gal is about the max I feel comfortable before entering boil over territory. I hadn't drained the tun, so thats obviously an issue. Left maybe a quart in the tun.

-I'll post a picture of the grain I have for my next batch, let the experts decide. If the crush really is a problem do you think there is anything wrong with taking it back and asking them to re crush it. The place it right down the road.

-I'm still trying to figure out the issue with my chiller. It seems like other don't have the same problem. How slow is your flow from the boil kettle? I had my valve about 1/3 open.

As always thanks for the help you guys rock!
Click to expand...


if you have too much wort for your pot size after the sparge, you could always go ahead and collect it in a smaller pot and boil it on your stove .. then add it to the main boil when you can fit it in there.

the thing there tho is knowing if you need to or not .. just check your gravity pre boil .. if its low .. collect some more wort and boil on the stove ... and yes, tell the brew store to run it thru again if you even think it's a bad crush. good luck
 
some of my problems might have been the crush size of the mill.

testing out some grains from a different source, and the crush looks much more fine (in a great way) will see if i get above my 60% effeciency that i was getting from the grains from my LHBS
 
swolfe said:
One thing you may want to look at is your thermometer, I was using a remote probe thermometer and randomly getting low efficiency...once I upgraded to a better thermometer, no problems.
Click to expand...

This will effect your fermentablility not gravity

Dont alway blame your crush or your mash tun as it could also be how much wort you collect and boil off that effects your efficiency.
 
Here's two picture of the crush I used....

35i4psj.jpg


1tli78.jpg
 
Ok that makes me feel better. I'll take it back to the shop and have them recrush it. I saw the guy put it through the mill, so I know they at least attempted to crush it.

Like I said first time all grain brewing, not sure what to expect.
 
Completely understandable. Rule of thumb when you are starting all grain is to set the mill for crush to where you are comfortable with, then close the gap one more setting :)
 
In regards to your cooling question, I've seen a bunch of posts recommending to slow the water flow in the cooler. This is the exact opposite of what you should do. I'm a chemical engineer by trade so heat exchangers are part of my hobby (brewing) and career. If you think about the exchanger, you would want the cooling side to be cold for the entire length of the exchanger... Think about it, would the wort side cool faster if it was in contact with cold liquid half the time, or the entire time. Wikipedia delta temperature log mean and you can see the actual equation behind this concept.

Disclaimer... This only works if you recirculate your water... Otherwise you would pinch on the water because it turns into a different problem of wanting to use all the sensible heat of the water before it goes to ground... If you wanted to preserve your ice.
 

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