Low Gravity on my First homemade recipe

Hey yall, i brewed my first recipe i made using beersmith two days ago. It is a partial mash, but i'm trying to use mostly grains in it! On beersmith it said it should be about 1.054, but i ended up with a starting gravity of 1.032. here is a run down of the recipe:

Grain Bill:
3# Light pale ale malt extract
5# 2-row malt
1# Crystal 15L
1/2# Honey
Boil:
60 mins 1/2 oz Warrior Hops
15 mins 1/2 oz Cascade
5 mins 1/2 oz Cascade

I did the mash-in-bag technique for now with 3 gallons of water at 160F starting out, and it stayed at 148F during the 45 min soak. I then sparged with 2 1/2 gallons of 170F water. I then added my malt extract and honey and brought to boil then added the hops at 60 mins, 15 mins(also put in my wort chiller), and 5 mins. i also added 1tsp of yeast nutrients at 10mins left in the boil.

the part that had me upset was that it took me forever to cool down my wort! usually it only takes me about 20-25 mins with the wort chiller, but this time it was closer to 30-35 mins. I had to add cold water to get it to atleast 80F and then when i transfered it to the primary it cooled to about 76F so i pitched the yeast. The og was 1.032 when i transfered it. I was hoping that anyone might be able to help me point out something i did wrong, because i really want to make this recipe awesome!!

Did you mill your grains?

you may not have gotten full conversion of your grains. 2qt/lb is pretty thin, 148F is kinda low, and 45mins is a bit short, all of which is hurting your chances of full conversion. it also, may have just been the topping off with cold water. wort and water is tough to properly mix enough to get an accurate reading.

I had my homebrew store mill the grains for me.

I think next time i'm gonna shoot for 152F on the soak, but how long should i do it for? I've always done it at 45 mins with all the kit recipes i've done and they have pretty much always turned out right on the dot. I had also read that 1 1/4qt/lb for the soak would be sufficent, but is that more for all grain? I thank you for your help!!

the mash time is dependant on several parameters, but 60mins is the norm. generally its longer for lower temps (<150F), and can be shorter for higher temps (>154F). the only way to know how long to go for sure is to do an starch test (pull out some of mash water and put in a drop of iodine, black means theres still starch) to check for complete conversion

1.25 qt/lb is good for the mash ratio, but you did 2 qt/lb, which slows the conversion.

I'd read this and the next section: http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-5.html

Thank you for all your help!! got some good notes for the next batch!!!

ok so an update on that batch! i added a pound of corn sugar to the secondary at the beginning and it brought it up to about 4.7%abv which is nice. It has very little body to it, but some sweetness from the corn sugar, and i also dry hopped it to try and make up for the loss of body and kinda cover it up for my friends! but overall not a drop thrown out and it is very drinkable!! i will make this again, but gonna try to get it right this next time!!

this is a common misconception, adding sugar to a batch will not add sweetness. in fact, since sugar is 100% fermentable it will actually dry it out and thin the batch even more. glad to hear its coming along well

dcp27 said:

this is a common misconception, adding sugar to a batch will not add sweetness. in fact, since sugar is 100% fermentable it will actually dry it out and thin the batch even more. glad to hear its coming along well

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not your fault, but if you read his other thread about the exact same batch it sounds like he kegged before all the sugar got a chance to ferment. Why he felt the need to have 2 threads about the same topic is a bit of a mystery but none-the-less it sounds like he is happy with the way it turned out, which is the important part.