Efficiency issue

[Jonathansmith2589]

I have brewed about 4 batches of all grains and have never had an efficiency issue until tonight. I brewed an ESB with 11.75 lbs of grain.

I had 3.5 gallons of strike water at 173 to mash at 154 then used another 2 gallons for mash out at 198 degrees to mash out in 170's and then used another 2.5 gallons to fly sparge at 168... However, tonight I noticed that my kettle did not look close to 8 gallons so I added another gallon to the wort during the boil and then added in some DME to make up for it. I brewed for 90 minutes, which I normally only brew for 60 minutes. After draining I only had 3.5 gallons of wort and was shooting for 5 gallons.. My SG was high at like 1.009.. I added in a gallon of water to get it to 1.006... What do you think my issues were, I do not normally mash out, could this have had something to do with it? Also, what issues might come of my beer for having to add a gallon to the wort and a gallon in the fermenter?I would assume that this beer is going to pretty thin? Any off flavors that I might expect from this? Any suggestions or solutions? Thanks in advance.

 

[hercher]

First, by boiling longer, you are going to have more evaporation. So it really isn't surprising that you wound up with less wort. Also, if it was cold outside, I think you will get more evaporation. Second, I assume your gravity was 1.090, not 1.009, which you brought down to 1.060, not 1.006. Without knowing your precise recipe, that is not a bad efficiency.

Mashing out should actually increase your efficiency because you are, effectively, rinsing out the remaining sugars. Keep in mind, when fly sparging, you want to go very slowly. Sparging too quickly can lead to channeling and incomplete rinsing of the grains.

You shouldn't have any issues with adding water post boil, unless there were off-flavors in the water. Keep in mind, that is standard procedure for many extract brewers. Ideally, you want to make sure that water gets mixed in well, but even if it doesn't, the yeast will churn things up enough during fermentation to take care of the job.

You should be OK.

 

[rdschultz]

It looks like you haven't factored in grain absorption... That amount of grain will absorb roughly 1.5 gallons of water, and you only put in 8 gallons total (which is why you didn't end up with 8 in the kettle).

How did you determine how much sparge water to use? I just batch sparge, but it seems you could've gotten away with more (i.e. keep sparging until your runnings are below 1.010 or you have reached your required volume). This would allow you to hit your volumes without water/dme, and you could work out your efficiency and fine tune your grain bill to hit your gravity.

 

[Talgrath]

First, as a note, that's not efficiency; efficiency is the measure of how much sugar is removed from the grain, not a measure of how much wort you wound up with. Second, boiling longer would make for more water lost due to evaporation. However, there's also the issue of how much water is lost from getting stuck in the equipment, that's something you'll have to determine yourself, most calculators default to 1 gallon but it could be more. Another factor is how energetic your boil is, if it's particularly hot/powerful then you could be evaporating a lot more liquid. Ultimately, I'd guess it's likely due to the longer boil and not factoring in equipment losses.

As far as flavor and/or mouthfeel, in theory it should be approximately the same as you would expect having correctly calculated the water and boil times, the longer boil time might add additional flavors you don't want in an ESB though.

 

[Talgrath]

It looks like you haven't factored in grain absorption... That amount of grain will absorb roughly 1.5 gallons of water, and you only put in 8 gallons total (which is why you didn't end up with 8 in the kettle).

How did you determine how much sparge water to use? I just batch sparge, but it seems you could've gotten away with more (i.e. keep sparging until your runnings are below 1.010 or you have reached your required volume). This would allow you to hit your volumes without water/dme, and you could work out your efficiency and fine tune your grain bill to hit your gravity.

Actually, I'd say he probably factored in grain absorption correctly, but failed to factor in the longer boil time and equipment losses from a fly sparge. The extra boil time will knock off approximately .4 gallons and if the equipment losses are 1 gallon (or maybe a little more) that would account for the whole of the 1.5 gallons.

 

[b-boy]

Is it possible you mis-measured your water? How do you measure out the water you add? I use a sight glass now, which is pretty accurate. I used to use a 1 gallon pyrex measuring cup and I lost track of my water addition a few times.

If not, it sounds like grain absorption, or wort loss to your equipment might be your culprit.

The liquid had to go somewhere.

 

[covers42]

You could be looking at 10 gallons of water to yield a 5 gallon batch. I would be shooting for 6 to 6.5 gallons preboil with about 1/2 gallon+ evaporation loss and 1/2+ gallons lost to turb and hop absorption. Initial sparge pulls out higher gravity runnings and the more you sparge the lower the gravity. A mistake I make in the past was to make 7+ gallons of wort and undershoot post boil gravity.
This approach also messes with hop bitterness levels.
As mentioned above stop sparging when you hit your target amount of wort or if PH raises too much. If you got 1.06 you should have a decent amount of sugars for a pale ale or IPA. How thin the beer tastes will depend upon your quantity of secondary grains used, mash temperature and yeast efficiency.
Keep brewing and enjoy the batch!

 

[rdschultz]

Actually, I'd say he probably factored in grain absorption correctly, but failed to factor in the longer boil time and equipment losses from a fly sparge. The extra boil time will knock off approximately .4 gallons and if the equipment losses are 1 gallon (or maybe a little more) that would account for the whole of the 1.5 gallons.

I don't disagree, because he ended up adding extra water, so your math works out for the boil. However, I also notice that he only used 8 gallons to start with and started adding extra water because he ended up with less than 8 gallons in the kettle. Perhaps I'm reading it wrong, but my impression is that this was the first issue which led to subsequent issues.