Low OG

Hey folks

So I recently moved to an area that does not have a brew shop so, I ordered online from a place over the mountains from me. When I received the grains they were poorly ground. Here is a run down of grains and boil. Could this low OG be because of the poorly ground grains?

10# Pale Malt
1# Brit Chocolate
1# Red Wheat
1# Biscuit

30 minutes @ 152
45 minutes @ 160

Low OG makes for me drinking more beers.

So....were you going to give us a hint what your pre-boil volume and SG was?

And what's with the 160 for 45 minutes?

Cheers!

Whoops forgot a couple points. My SG was 1.032 on a 5 gallon pre boil.

I step the temp of the boil on advice from a friend of mine. Never really did that before. Thought I would give it a try. Attempting to get a velvety astringent.

I used a Scottish Ale Yeast

Knotquiterite said:

Hey folks

So I recently moved to an area that does not have a brew shop so, I ordered online from a place over the mountains from me. When I received the grains they were poorly ground. Here is a run down of grains and boil. Could this low OG be because of the poorly ground grains?

10# Pale Malt
1# Brit Chocolate
1# Red Wheat
1# Biscuit

30 minutes @ 152
45 minutes @ 160

Low OG makes for me drinking more beers.

Click to expand...

Bad crush can lower your OG by reducing your conversion efficiency. Your mash schedule also probably degraded your conversion efficiency. Collecting only 5 gal of pre-boil wort from a 13 lb grain bill definitely reduced your lauter efficiency.

Brew on

The coarser the crush the longer you need to mash to be able to convert the starches and extract the sugars. Raising the temperature in the middle of the mash probably denatured the beta amylase enzymes before they had a chance to convert all the dextrines to maltose so you got a less fermentable wort. If you get a poor crush again, do a 90 minute mash at 152 and see if you don't get a better result.

RM-MN said:

The coarser the crush the longer you need to mash to be able to convert the starches and extract the sugars. Raising the temperature in the middle of the mash probably denatured the beta amylase enzymes before they had a chance to convert all the dextrines to maltose so you got a less fermentable wort. If you get a poor crush again, do a 90 minute mash at 152 and see if you don't get a better result.

Click to expand...

Much more informative response than mine.

@Knotquiterite: What was your target batch size (expected volume in fermenter), how much strike water did you use, did you sparge, and if so how much sparge water did you use?

Brew on

Even if you crushed to flower with that small amount of water used/collected your efficiency will be abysmal.

Crush finer

Mash thinner.

+/- Sparge effectively

Target a preboil volume greater than your batch size.

batch size + boil-off + kettle trub (if any) + dead space loss (if any) +hops absorption + shrinkage at 4%

On my setup for 5.5 gallon batch and a 1 hour boil thats a 7 gallon preboil volume in the boil kettle.