Partigyle epic fail

The plan was a wee heavy and export ale partgile. Did a decoction mash and stepped from 146 to 154 for a total mash time of 2 hours. Vorlauf then ran out the run and came up 2 gallons short of the planned 6.5 gallon preboil volume. Added some more and then took a pre oil gravity and I was .o20 low! It wS 1.070 and that is about 60% efficiency which is lower than my usual. The grain bill was 18.75 total. I added my 26 more quarts for the second batch and that preboil gravity was 1.015!?!?!?! So I dumped it. What happened? Why was the second batch so low? What killed my efficiency? I know sparging raises efficiency but I even milled my grain twice through! What else could I have done? A few months back I had a 1.090 Irish red from only 14.75 lbs of grain. I know different grains ( MO vs 2 row) but still I'm pissed...

So no one wants to help? Ok me against the world hehe shameless bump

Reply to thread fail guess I'm on my own

What were your recipe, brew system, and water volumes. Something was definetly up with your water volume if you were 2 gal short on your first run. What software did you use?

If you milled twice I would bet you had a lot of doughballs. They can kill efficiency.

60% seems about right for that grain bill.

Check out brau kaisers partigyle spreadsheet. It is pretty much dead on.

No dough balls I would have seen then when i dumped the spent grain.

I use a 10g rubbermaid cooler with a FB I batch sparge and did a 2 hour mash 60 min at 146 and 60 at 154 for maximum extraction. I calculated dough in with 30.5 quarts for a 18.75 lb grain bill for 1.5 qt/lb and I calculated that I should have gotten 22.9 qts out after the mash. Does this math check ? I add 2 quarts for dead loss in my system.
I use ibremaster for
My software

In Ray Daniel's book Designing Great Beers he has a table for determing gallons of water lost in spent grain. Rounding up to 19 lbs of grain you would of lost 4.125 gallons of water due to absorption, which equals almost 17 quarts. So you would have been left with roughly 13.5 quarts or a little over 3 gallons of wort( 1st runnings) I don't know how you would get to a pre boil of 6.5 gallons without sparging.....which defeats the purpose of partigyle. I think you needed more grain and more water.......

Jklinden said:

No dough balls I would have seen then when i dumped the spent grain.

I use a 10g rubbermaid cooler with a FB I batch sparge and did a 2 hour mash 60 min at 146 and 60 at 154 for maximum extraction. I calculated dough in with 30.5 quarts for a 18.75 lb grain bill for 1.5 qt/lb and I calculated that I should have gotten 22.9 qts out after the mash. Does this math check ? I add 2 quarts for dead loss in my system.
I use ibremaster for
My software

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Just because there weren't dry spots in the grain at the end of a 2hr mash doesn't mean there weren't doughballs slowly soaking up fluid for much of the mash. How well did you dough in?

Grain absorption is typically ~0.125 gal/pound of grain, which for your grain bill is ~9.4 qts or ~2.35 gal. To net 23 qts with your 2 qt deadspace you'd need to strike with 34.4 qts, which is a gal more than you used.

Did you check for conversion? An SG that low from the first runnings indicates that something in the mash went wrong. Have you calibrated your thermometers recently? What volume of the mash was used for the decoction? Was the decoction portion you pulled really thick, or did it have standing wort above the grains? If your decoction was too thin or too large you might have killed enough of the enzymes to seriously hinder conversion.

Phunhog said:

In Ray Daniel's book Designing Great Beers he has a table for determing gallons of water lost in spent grain. Rounding up to 19 lbs of grain you would of lost 4.125 gallons of water due to absorption, which equals almost 17 quarts.

Click to expand...

Are you sure you're reading that correctly? Most books and brewing programs I've seen estimate grain absorption between 0.1 and 0.15 gal/lb, which is way less than 4 1/8 gal.

There is no way you'll ever get 6.5 gal first runnings with that cooler and grain bill. I use the same cooler and have never gotten more than 5 gal first runnings with a similar grain bill.

Did you dump everything? Or just the second batch?

JuanMoore said:

Are you sure you're reading that correctly? Most books and brewing programs I've seen estimate grain absorption between 0.1 and 0.15 gal/lb, which is way less than 4 1/8 gal.

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I don't have the book in front of me right now. That does seem high though. In my experience 20 lbs of grain will only absorb about 3 gallons of water when mashing in at 1.5 qt/ lb

I agree I planned on adding at least 3 quarts or so to top off with. I did dump te second batch which had a preboil OG just over 1.014 the rest looks awesome and is bubbling away

How long did you boil your decoction? How thick was it? In addition to the gallon and change unaccounted for with dead space and absorption, the boiloff might have put you at 2 gallons shy.


e: also, that sucks that you dumped the second runnings. You could have boiled it down to a nice ~3 gallon batch of small beer, or added some DME/capped the mash with another pound of two of grain and sparged with the runoff.

Decocted 10 quarts and took it to 170 degrees. I know a true decoction is to boiling but I have no other way of raising the temps for step mash profiles. I agree I could have saved the second batch but I was a bit upset. The first batch ended up at 1.102 OG and it is going ape nuts right now.

Jklinden said:

Decocted 10 quarts and took it to 170 degrees. I know a true decoction is to boiling but I have no other way of raising the temps for step mash profiles. I agree I could have saved the second batch but I was a bit upset. The first batch ended up at 1.102 OG and it is going ape nuts right now.

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Once again, how thick was the decoction?

Admittedly too thin. There was standing wort on top of the grains which leads me
To ask how does one get the thickest one third of the mash? Was I supposed to drain off the liquid and keep the grain? I guess I was a bit confused about that. I am making a RIS with plans to Partygile again but instead of decocting I will use steam to do a three rest step mash? Your thoughts ?

60% efficiency sounds about right on for no sparging. That is about where I am at when I do no sparge brews.