Screwed up first AG brew but not sure how

Hi, there: This is my first time posting after lurking for many weeks, trying to soak up enough knowledge to feel confident enough to try my first all-grain brew. I picked a recipe posted by thunderworm back in 2010 for an American wheat that sounded delicious and looked simple. I tried to brew it today. Learned a lotta lessons and will have to fine-tune my technique a little bit. OK, more than a little bit.

I'm not posting to tell you that, though. I have to ask if you can help me figure out how I screwed up the mash. Everything seemed to be going well. I mashed in with 170 degree water, hit the target temp of 150 on the nose using a calculation from one of you guys (wish I could remember who to thank you properly) by adding 155 to the number of pounds of grain plus 5. Good tip, thanks.

I wrapped up the mash tun, a Coleman cooler, in a thick comforter and when I uncovered it an hour later I don't think I lost more than a degree or two, so thanks for that tip as well!

Now here's the thing: After the vorlauf, I drained off the first running, then refilled the mash tun and, while it was sitting, I took a sample to see what the gravity was. Turned out to be just 1.010! Adding the second running didn't help boost it at all! The OG should have been 1.050 according to thunderworm's recipe.

I don't know what I did wrong. I wasn't sure how much water to add to the mash the first time, so I started by just covering the grains and then, because I remembered that oatmeal soaks up a lot of water, I kept on adding water until it was about an inch over the grains. That amounted to about 3 gals. Should I have added more water? I left it to soak for an hour. Should I have left it longer?

I tried to save it by adding a pound and a half of extra light DME I had left over from a previous brew. That brought the OG up to 1.035, not even close to what the recipe called for. I'm going to try the same recipe again next weekend to see what happens, but in the meantime I sure would like to hear any guesses anybody out there might have as to what went wrong.

What's the recipe? It sounds like you did everything correctly. Did you cool the sample before taking the reading?

Cool. The. Sample. D'oh!

No, I measured the gravity while the wort was still really, *really* hot. Almost boiling.

If anybody needs me, I'll be sitting in the corner licking my wounds.

Everything sounds right. Like deuce just said, did you cool the wort before measuring your gravity? For the mash I add 1 liter of water per pound of grain. Then for the sparge I just add water to the top of the grain bed, give it a stir and let it settle a couple minutes and drain again. But make sure you raise the temp of your sparge water for every sparge you have to make to get to your pre boil volume.

Chances are good that you will still have a decent beer though. If your crush wasn't really good it can drop your efficiency.

Well, then I think I did it right, all up to the part about cooling the sample. I sparged at 165 deg F and probably used too much water, but I boiled it off until all I had left was 6 gal, what the recipe called for.

When I check fermentation tomorrow morning I'll have to steal another sample to see what the real gravity is.

This recipe looked so good I had to try it: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f70/am...e-best-show-2011-hbt-bjcp-competition-238940/ Also, it seemed like a simple enough recipe for a first try at all-grain brewing.

Correct me if I am wrong but even after temp correction from 150°F the first runnings werlikely around 1.029.
My question was where/who crushed the grains fro you? I have seen some shocking crushes before that would drop your eff through the floor.

I crushed the grains myself at my LHBS. They have a mill for customers to use. I didn't ask how it was set, but after running my grain through it, it appeared to be well-crushed, almost floury. It compared well with photos of well-crushed grain I've seen in the forums here on Home Brew Talk.

I took the first sample after heating the wort up in the brew kettle well above 150 F. I still can't believe I did that. Took a sample just now at about 70 F and found the OG is 1.050!

drivelmeister said:

I crushed the grains myself at my LHBS. They have a mill for customers to use. I didn't ask how it was set, but after running my grain through it, it appeared to be well-crushed, almost floury. It compared well with photos of well-crushed grain I've seen in the forums here on Home Brew Talk.

I took the first sample after heating the wort up in the brew kettle well above 150 F. I still can't believe I did that. Took a sample just now at about 70 F and found the OG is 1.050!

Click to expand...

That makes more sense, damn OG drops off sharp with increasing temp

A few things,
As you've seen, temperature effects the hydrometer reading.
You can use this http://www.brewersfriend.com/hydrometer-temp/

Pre boil and post boil gravity is going to be different
http://onebeer.net/boilcalc.shtml

Most of us use somewhere between 1 quart to 1.5 quarts per pound. Over sparging can give you a lower gravity.
Good news is, you did hit your gravity!