First 2 AG --what am I doing wrong?

[MetuchenBrewerNJ]

Hello everyone,
So over the past week I've done my first 2 AG batches, and they did not go as well as I had hoped, so I was wondering if anyone could help me out a little bit. I did the brew in a bag and here's the summary of what I did:

Ingredients:
6 lbs 5 oz British pale Ale Malt
2 lbs 11 oz German Pilsner Malt
3.8 AAU Cascade (60 min) (.75 oz @ 5%)
3.8 AAU Cascade (30 min) (.75 oz @ 5%)
3.8 AAU Cascade (0 min) (.75 oz @ 5%)
.88 oz Amarillo (Dry Hop)
Nottingham Ale Yeast (WLP005 English Ale Yeast)

I used the program which told me 3.4 strike at 162 with a target of 152 for a 60 minute mash. We striked at 162 but it came down to about 148, so we put the heat on (turket frier to an 8 gallon stainless steel pot) and got it around 153 and left it for an hour, and it only fell to 151, maybe 150 (which may be a bit lower than we want, but still doesn't explain why it came out so bad). So we took out the bag, sparged with 3.4 gal at 172. After doing this we were left with about 5.5 gallons and a pre-boil wort with a gravity of 1.024, which, using an online calculator, give us an efficiency of somewhere around 33-34%. My volume measurements weren't exact, I admit, but still, pretty bad.

I'm not exactly sure what we did wrong. The batch before this we did the same things and were around 60% efficiency (better, but still not great). Any thoughts? Both came out very weird looking, too. They looked like muddy water, kind of like when you're at the beach and you dig a hole, and then a wave comes in and the water in the whole mixes with a bunch of sand. I just put the first batch into the secondary yesterday and it looked really, really hazy, like seriously, muddy muddy water. And this batch yesterday (the first one described) was similar looking.

Because of our very low effeciency (I know it goes up after the boil, but it was still very low), we figured why not mess around with it a little and see what happens (it didn't seem to be a promising batch anyway). We added .5# of honey and .5# of corn syrup, and 4 oz dextrose (I know, not great for adding to a wort, but whatever). That helped get us an OG of 1.058 (maybe we should have skipped the dextrose), and the beer looked decent.

But still, there's an obvious problem, as our effeciency was only 33%. Not sure what we did wrong though. The volumes and temps were figured out using BrewPal, and we held a decent temperature. Also, I'm in NJ. Admittedly, I've never tested the water to find Ph and all that, but we've never had taste bproblems with out extract batches, and NJ water is supposedly pretty good.

Any suggestions? Any idea what I did wrong? As always, thanks for the help.

-Chris

 

[JLW]

A couple of questions:

1. Did you sparge after your mash? How much did you sparge with?

2. After you collected all of your wort did you mix and cool the wort prior to checking gravity?

 

[Brewer_Steve]

After doing this we were left with about 5.5 gallons and a pre-boil wort with a gravity of 1.024

Did you correct your hydrometer for temperature?
1.024 at 170F is about 1.049 after correction.

 

[Brandonovich]

You need to check the calibration on the thermometer you are using for your mash temperature as well. I have a handful of thermometers that are off by as much as ten degrees depending on the temperature range. Decide which thermometer you are going to use for your mash and calibrate it at 150 degrees.

 

[MetuchenBrewerNJ]

Sorry for the lack of detail.
1. Yes, we sparged after the mash with 3.4 gal @ 172
2. Yes, we mixed it, and collected a sample, then cooled it to 60 before doing the hyrdometer reading.

Could it be that my thermometer is just bad? We actually used 2 different ones, one is the analogue one that comes with turkey friers, the other was a digital one (but it is a meat thermometer, so maybe it doesn't measure liquid very accurately?) I hadn't thought of that, but perhaps I should look into that.

 

[Yooper]

Sorry for the lack of detail.
1. Yes, we sparged after the mash with 3.4 gal @ 172
2. Yes, we mixed it, and collected a sample, then cooled it to 60 before doing the hyrdometer reading.

Could it be that my thermometer is just bad? We actually used 2 different ones, one is the analogue one that comes with turkey friers, the other was a digital one (but it is a meat thermometer, so maybe it doesn't measure liquid very accurately?) I hadn't thought of that, but perhaps I should look into that.

If it's "muddy" looking, I'm thinking that you have starch still in the wort, and didn't get good conversion.

Do you have any iodine or Iodophor so you can do a conversion test with the next batch?

How was your crush? I know with BIAB you can crush pretty fine, but perhaps you got it too fine?

 

[MetuchenBrewerNJ]

I don't believe I had any idione but I can get some. And my crush was just the regular setting at my LHBS. If it was too much starch, would that mean my temp was too low?

 

[Mysticmead]

have your LHBS double crush the grains. also, what size of batch are you looking for AFTER the boil and what was the post boil OG? After you drain the bag make sure you squeeze the wort out.. I spin the bag to tighten it and once I can't spin it anymore I squeeze. I also noticed you said you had about 5.5 gallons pre-boil. if you don't have an accurate way of measuring, you can't get an accurate efficiency % there's a BIG difference in 5 gallon, 5.5 gallons and 6 gallons

 

[Brandonovich]

It would mean you did not get proper conversion. I think the first step is to make sure you are mashing at the correct temperature. Take your digital thermometer and put in it a glass of 1/2 ice and 1/2 water. It should read 32 degrees. If not, note the difference. Heat up some water to 150 degrees. Measure this with your digital thermometer, and correct it's reading by how far off your ice water reading was. While you still have the digital probe in the hot water, also put your analog thermometer in and note the difference. You now have your correction factor for your thermometer. Compare that to your notes from your brew, and I think you will find you were outside the optimal mash temperature range for at least part of the time.

 

[Mysticmead]

It would mean you did not get proper conversion. I think the first step is to make sure you are mashing at the correct temperature. Take your digital thermometer and put in it a glass of 1/2 ice and 1/2 water. It should read 32 degrees. If not, note the difference. Heat up some water to 150 degrees. Measure this with your digital thermometer, and correct it's reading by how far off your ice water reading was. While you still have the digital probe in the hot water, also put your analog thermometer in and note the difference. You now have your correction factor for your thermometer. Compare that to your notes from your brew, and I think you will find you were outside the optimal mash temperature range for at least part of the time.

1/2 ice - 1/2 water isn't going to be 32F.. it'll be close, but not 32 (water freezes at 32F) but.... water boils at 212F (adjust for altitude of course). For my altitude of 1000ft it boils at 210F. it's much easier to check a thermometer like that since the temp can't go over the boiling point. http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2oboilcalc.html

 

[jeepinjeepin]

1/2 ice and 1/2 water could be 32*f if the water added was cool enough. If you have ice and water present it is 32*f. It will not budge up or down until it all melts or freezes. Look up "latent heat".

Good call on the boiling water. Atmospheric pressure is the only thing that changes that and you can calculate the difference via altitude.

These are the only 2 temps that we at home can "safely" calibrate at.

 

[Brandonovich]

Either way has the potential to be off by a degree or two. The instructions for calibrating a thermometer will tell you to do it either way, so you are probably fine with hot or cold. The important part is calibrating your mash thermometer at mash temperatures. Analog thermometers - especially dial thermometers - are only full accurate in certain temperature ranges. I found out that my dial thermometer was of by about 6 degrees at mash temps.

 

[jeepinjeepin]

Either way has the potential to be off by a degree or two. The instructions for calibrating a thermometer will tell you to do it either way, so you are probably fine with hot or cold. The important part is calibrating your mash thermometer at mash temperatures. Analog thermometers - especially dial thermometers - are only full accurate in certain temperature ranges. I found out that my dial thermometer was of by about 6 degrees at mash temps.

The problem is that if you don't have an accurate thermometer in the first place how do know that you are at 150F to calibrate your thermometer?

 

[rollinred]

1/2 ice - 1/2 water isn't going to be 32F.. it'll be close, but not 32 (water freezes at 32F) but.... water boils at 212F (adjust for altitude of course). For my altitude of 1000ft it boils at 210F. it's much easier to check a thermometer like that since the temp can't go over the boiling point. http://www.csgnetwork.com/h2oboilcalc.html

Mystic,

This statement is false to a certain extent. It really should be ice melts at 32 degrees. I do believe water lacking all other mineral content will freeze at 32 but when you take normal water and put enough ice in it, it will be 32 degrees but will not freeze because it has other minerals like salts and such in it.

But you are right, testing at boiling is almost always more accurate because it does not vary, it only gets to 212. But the ice water test is plenty accurate for a good mash.

 

[Mysticmead]

of course you could add enough ice and enough salt and get it below 32.. but that, as my dad would say, is separating the fly s#!t from the pepper. use the calc I linked and adjust for your boiling temp and boil some water. then if you need to, check with cold water w/ice. Get the best of both and find out how off the thermometer is.

 

[jeepinjeepin]

Mystic,

This statement is false to a certain extent. It really should be ice melts at 32 degrees. I do believe water lacking all other mineral content will freeze at 32 but when you take normal water and put enough ice in it, it will be 32 degrees but will not freeze because it has other minerals like salts and such in it.

But you are right, testing at boiling is almost always more accurate because it does not vary, it only gets to 212. But the ice water test is plenty accurate for a good mash.

This statement is also false to a certain extent. You can add all the ice you want to distilled water and it won't freeze.

When thermal energy is withdrawn from a liquid or solid, the temperature falls. When thermal energy is added to a liquid or solid, the temperature rises. However, at the transition point between solid and liquid (the melting point), extra energy is required (the heat of fusion).

In going from liquid to solid (freezing), the molecules of a substance become arranged in a more ordered state. For them to attain the order of a solid, slightly less heat is withdrawn at the point of crystallization. That not withdrawn heat is stored in the form of primarily potential energy to build the solid lattice. In going from solid to liquid (melting), the molecules of a substance become arranged in a less ordered state. To create the relative disorder from the solid crystal to liquid, slightly more heat is added at the point of decrystallization. That energy from heat is utilized to break the solid lattice. This heat does not result in a temperature change, and is called a latent (or hidden) heat.

The heat of fusion can be observed by measuring the temperature of water as it freezes. If a closed container of room temperature water is plunged into a very cold environment (say −20 °C), the temperature will fall steadily until it drops just below the freezing point (0 °C). The temperature then will rebound and hold steady while the water crystallizes. Once the water is completely frozen, its temperature will fall steadily again.

 

[kapbrew13]

Hug or wrap your pot in blankets or towels to keep the temperature from dropping so much. My 2 cents.

 

[mrbobble]

Hug your pot! DO IT!

 

[kapbrew13]

Hug your pot! DO IT!

the more love you put into it, the better it'll come out. Remember to read to it every night also.

 

[MetuchenBrewerNJ]

haha you guys are funny. We did actually wrap it in a blanket, and the temp falling wasn't the big problem, I'm pretty sure it was more of just the temperature being wrong. We'll have to calibrate the thermometer we use (I'm getting a new one, our old was getting dinged up anyway). So thanks a lot for the link. Hopefully the temp problem really was the major thing that went wrong.

 

[Mysticmead]

don't forget to double crush those grains!

 

[MetuchenBrewerNJ]

don't forget to double crush those grains!

Yes! The other thing I need to remember! Thanks again!