Another 1st time AG'er

I had to break up my mash and brew nights due to time constraints. Mashed last night and will brew tonight. I can tell already that I'm going to love brewing with all grains. I've brewed 7 exctract recipes already and now that I have done one mash, I'm starting to understand concepts and terms better then I was with extracts. But I still have some questions.

Now to the point.

Recipe:

10 lbs 2 -row (forgot the name already)
.5 lbs Biscuit Malt
.5 lbs Crystal 55L

Then Amarillo and Simcoe Hops

Cali Ale Yeast (liquid)


The recipe has an OG target of 1.057 at 71% efficiency

With some problems I hit 1.039. So overall what does this mean? I havn't figured out the efficiency yet (not sure how), but does this mean I extracted less sugars from the grain so I'll have a lower ABV?

If somone could help me grasp some of these concepts that would be great.
Sorry for the long post.

It depends on how much wort you have at 1.039.

If you collected 7 gallons of 1.039 wort and intend to boil it down to 5.25 gallons, then you'll end up with 5.25 gallons at 1.052.

39 * 7 / 5.25 = 52

Your efficiency would be your OG divided by the total possible gravity points that copuld be extracted by the quantity of grain in the quantity of water (your final batch size.)

The OG reading was with 6.5 gallons that we collected.

So is this the correct then
39 * 6.5/4.25 = 59

so the corrected OG then would around 1.059?

BrewUO said:

The OG reading was with 6.5 gallons that we collected.

So is this the correct then
39 * 6.5/4.25 = 59

so the corrected OG then would around 1.059?

Click to expand...

Right--if you want to hit the target gravity of 1.059, you'd have to boil down to a final batch size of about 4.25 gallons.

If you went with 5 gallons, your OG would be about 1.051.

If your recipe was for a 5 gallon batch, it was assuming about 73% efficiency.

in 5 gallons:

10 lb 2 row = 74 possible gravity points (37 per lb per gallon)
.5 lb biscuit = 3.5 possible gravity points (35 per lb per gallon)
.5 lb crystal = 3.5 possible gravity points (35 per lb per gallon)
---------------------------------------------
81 points possible @ 100% efficiency

so 1.059 is 59/81 = 72.8 % efficiency

You got 51/81 = about 63% efficiency

That's not terrible but a touch on the low side: you may have not drained the tun entirely, or maybe you had too coarse a crush or a pH problem with your mash or sparge.

Did you batch sparge or fly sparge?

Batch Sparged. My friend and I bought the ingredients around 4:30. Had to build the Mash-tun (igloo with ss dishwasher hose) So we were short on time.

Plus when stirring in the grains and water we were perfect at 150 F but has he was stirring the darn ss hose at the bottom came off. So we dumped all the grains and water into our brew kettle tightened down the hose clamp again, then poured everything back into the cooler. So our technique was just a little off, plus rushed for time, finally finished up around 10:45pm.


Thanks for your help.
Any other tips for next mash?