First two all grain batches taste "watery"

[CharlieVT]

I did two 5 gallon batches one day apart with two different IPAs (Zombie Dust clone and Sculpin clone). They both came out okay, but they feel watery - I'm totally guessing, but maybe that is what is meant by "mouth feel"? The zombie dust OG was way lower than expected, so the ABV is pretty low. The sculpin hit pretty close to target OG. Both hit a FG of 1.006.

I'm using a three tier tower system, three kettles (HLT, MLT, boil kettle), cooking with propane. HLT temps at 168 F, mashed at 152 F for 60 min. Milled my own grains and they seemed fine.

I sparged my first batch (the most watery tasting) way too quickly (25 min), but the second seemed more like what I expected at 45 minutes to sparge.

I didn't check my HLT water pH (but have a tester inbound). I didn't add anything (salts, etc) to the sparge water. This is above my pay grade at this time.

I bungled a few more things: first time with my plate chilling setup and I ran the wort through too fast, so I wasn't able to cool the sculpin clone enough, my new to me fermentation fridge setup didn't work (DOA used fridge), so I ended up letting it cool for like 8 hours before temps were low enough to pitch yeast.

All in all both drinkable, but not as tasty as the extract batches I have been making.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[Yooper]

There are a couple of things that jump out at me- the first is if you miss your OG, the lower ABV and malt amount can make the beer thinner. Secondly, with a low FG of 1.006, it would be very thin.

How sure are you of the FG? That's unusually low for those beers, and odd that they are both the exactly the same, so I wonder if you mashed at a lower temperature than you think (how's the thermometer in the mash?) or something else? I normally get 1.010-1.012 for those type of beers.

 

[jdauria]

Just curious, are you tasting them before carbonating or after? You mention not adjusting the water or taking pH...those two steps are really important with all grain. With extract, the mash is already done for you so the water does not matter, but it's not the case with all grain. Especially with two IPA's...if your local water is high in chloride (mine is in Mass) or very low in all minerals, then you would need to add some gypsum to increase sulfates to help accent the hops. Controlling pH also helps with improving efficiency.

 

[tracer bullet]

Agreed to the above. Low starting gravities will net you a thin beer for sure. And high finals.

Low starting: Didn't mash long enough / at the right temp, possible issues with grain crush are the most common. Also sparge technique if any. Low finals: Didn't ferment for some reason, again often temperature related.

Those things don't have to be exact, there's a fairly wide range of temps that are OK. Water additions can tweak things but aren't usually the sole culprit.

Your numbers and plans look right, 152F for an hour with a good crush, but - sounds like one of those things didn't go as expected. 25 minutes of sparging, if I read that right, should be fine.

I just brewed yesterday, an hour at 152 held pretty well according to the thermometer I trust, and a ~ 168 degree sparge that lasted about 10 minutes if that. 11.5 pounds grain in 4 gallons of water with a 4 gallon sparge - which was just dumping the water in and letting it sit after the mash water had come out. Per the online calculators I hit ~ 85% and came in slightly above my expected OG (1.058 I think).

 

[CharlieVT]

jdauria - thank you!

No news to anyone who has made the switch, but it is a bit daunting keeping track of all of the things that need to be done differently.

I didn't even realize that pH of the sparge water or amendments was anything I needed to think about until reading a book a week after brewing it.

I ordered a pH meter that should be here any day now, and I can test the pH of the water.

I guess the other thing I need is a water test to see what I need to amend the water with (if anything) - I'm brewing with well water from my house.

I tasted both when I moved to the keg (from the stuff I tested the FG with a hydrometer), and I had some that was carbonated yesterday (5 days at 10 psi at 41 deg F). The stuff I had yesterday was more "watery" or "thin" tasting.

Hmm, that thing about gypsum (isn't that what sheetrock is made of ???) is interesting! The hops aren't as noticeable (more muted) as the last few times I've brewed this same Sculpin clone recipe (extract, but same hops and hops schedule). I blamed that on my hop spider not allowing the hops to circulate as well, but maybe it is the sparge water!

 

[CharlieVT]

Thanks, tracer bullet. Lots to consider.

One of these had 13lb grain (zombie dust) and the other 11.5 lb (sculpin). I used 1.1 quarts of water per lb of grain in my mash.

I may have messed up the grain milling (first time there too), but I don't know what is "right". The milling looked reasonable...

I guess I just need to try a few more batches to dial it in a bit.

 

[CharlieVT]

Yooper - thanks!

I am not 100% about the FG. I thought I read that the refractometer is not usable once fermented because of the alcohol in the beer, so I used a hydrometer. The hydrometer came in a pile of stuff on a craigslist buy. It might not be calibrated or accurate? I could have read it wrong too, but it was in the range of a tick mark or two above 1.010, so I guesstimated 1.006. maybe I need a new one? I took OG with a refractometer that I calibrated with distilled water, so I think that was accurate.

I never thought to test the thermometer in the MLT - it is one of the ones in the side of the kettle that came with it. I suppose there is probably a way to measure/calibrate it? I just blindly trusted it...

More stuff to think about...

There are a couple of things that jump out at me- the first is if you miss your OG, the lower ABV and malt amount can make the beer thinner. Secondly, with a low FG of 1.006, it would be very thin.

How sure are you of the FG? That's unusually low for those beers, and odd that they are both the exactly the same, so I wonder if you mashed at a lower temperature than you think (how's the thermometer in the mash?) or something else? I normally get 1.010-1.012 for those type of beers.

 

[tracer bullet]

It's a small learning curve, but on the upside it'll be more fun and you'll have more recipe control once you get it figured out.

Hydrometer finals of 1.006 sound kind of right, it means it fermented. Sure it could be off but it sounds OK. I would guess that sitting it in plain water should give you 1.000 if you want to be sure.

So that leaves the mash as the culprit. If your times and temps were right, then it'd be the grain. Assuming you did follow a good recipe and had a lot of base malts that can give you starches to turn to sugars (i.e. 2-row, and not a couple pounds of crystal), that kind of means the crush? I don't own a mill, but I often read a "credit card wide gap" or something around .030 - .035" is often used. If you were way wider than that, you may not have opened the grain enough to get at what's inside?

Calibrating a tun thermometer is pretty easy, normally. Fill it with water and let it sit a day. Check with another thermometer you trust, and then compare. It's usually a dial on the back to rotate the little disc inside with the actual markings on it. That can be a challenge to get to, hah, but you'll see quickly what to do to correct it if needed.

There are good calculators out there to tell you your mash water temp before you add grains, it's basically just comparing the weight of the water vs. the weight of the grains, both their temps, and figuring out the results of the combination. You might sanity check what you're doing to be sure. This one works about perfectly for me: Mash Infusion and Rest Schedule Calculator - Brewer's Friend

I love the refractometer for the brewing, and the hydrometer for post fermentation. For the refractometer, there's a method to see how you're doing. It's basically taking the refractometer reading x the # of gallons. If you have 1.050 gravity at the start of boil, and say 6 gallons of it, you multiply (only) the 50 x 6 to get 300. If that boiled down to 5 gallons, you'd end up with 300 / 5 = 60, meaning 1.060 gravity. You can see how you're doing and act accordingly (i.e. too low = sparge more or add DME, too high = water it down).

 

[CharlieVT]

Thank everyone! I appreciate you taking the time to help educate me.

 

[cyto]

I would suggest buying your grain for the next batch already cracked and see how it goes. From how you described your process under cracking seems to be the most likely problem.

 

[CharlieVT]

cyto - ok, I'll buy some cracked grains and use them to compare my mill results. I used the credit card gap adjustment technique, but maybe my setting wasn't good enough.

 

[cyto]

What was the grain bill for the two batches?

 

[CharlieVT]

@cyto:

Zombie dust clone: 11 lbs 2 row, 1.5 lbs munich (specialty malts: .5 lbs crystal 60L, .5 lbs carapils)
Sculpin clone: 13 lbs of 2 row pale (specialty malts: .5 lbs crystal 10L, .5 lbs carapils)

 

[cyto]

Yeah you should have had much better results with that much grain. As far as cracking if you have the gap correct but run it through too quickly you will still get less than optimal results.

 

[CharlieVT]

I probably ran it through too quickly. Are there any rules of thumb or guidelines?

fwiw, the beer is good, just not GREAT.