Grainbill, and not that high SG

[songe]

Well. so i had a heck of a lot grain to make a belgian strong ale. (18lb) Oddly enough after 90 min mash i did not get the desired OG before boil. Which is kinda odd. Might me my setup is too small for that amount of grains?

And how do you guys calc the water loss in grain?

 

[antony]

what was your og before boil? After boil? Beersmith has the water loss to grain absorption ratio set, but I don't remember what it is off hand. You really need a thin mash with biab. Full volume is best; maybe your grain was packed too tight and the mash too thick. I'm curious what others think.

Do you sparge?

 

[TexasWine]

Actually, it's not that odd at all. You should expect your efficiency to drop when you get into the upper regions of grain bills. For example, last week I made my first barley wine and the recipe assumed 70% because I had 23 lbs of grain. For a normal grain bill of 15 lbs or less I'm north of 80% efficiency. I hit 73% with this batch, so I had a good guess.

Next time you'll just need to add a little more grain to hit the gravity you're looking for. If you don't already do this, I'd recommend getting some software to help you figure it out.

 

[pricelessbrewing]

For biab typical grain absoprtion is 0.08 gal/lb, while the grian occupies (displaces) 0.08 gal/lb as well so the mash will be 0.08 gal/lb larger than before you added the grains and will end up 0.08 gal/lb less than after you remove them.

Effeciency is expected to be less when you have larger grain bills.

 

[desabat]

Record it and measure your efficiency at different OGs

 

[songe]

Actually, it's not that odd at all. You should expect your efficiency to drop when you get into the upper regions of grain bills. For example, last week I made my first barley wine and the recipe assumed 70% because I had 23 lbs of grain. For a normal grain bill of 15 lbs or less I'm north of 80% efficiency. I hit 73% with this batch, so I had a good guess.

Next time you'll just need to add a little more grain to hit the gravity you're looking for. If you don't already do this, I'd recommend getting some software to help you figure it out.

18lb should have given me 1.090 OG.

I had about 6 gal of water before steeping the grains, after that uhm. probably 3.9 gallons, so i sparged the grains in the sack a bit more, and added water to bring it back to 6 gallons so that when boiling i wont loos so much.

 

[chickypad]

18lb should have given me 1.090 OG.

I had about 6 gal of water before steeping the grains, after that uhm. probably 3.9 gallons, so i sparged the grains in the sack a bit more, and added water to bring it back to 6 gallons so that when boiling i wont loos so much.

If you can sparge up to the boil volume rather than partially topping off with plain water that will pick you up a few gravity pts. I always have to sparge even lower gravity BIAB batches because my kettle is relatively small compared to the batch size. I find I get better efficiency dunk sparging rather than pour sparging. You could probably do that in a bucket, i.e. put the full sparge volume in the bucket, dunk the bag in and stir the crap out of it, then add the resulting wort to the kettle.

 

[songe]

Yeah i need to sparge in a fermenter bucket, then just dump it in my kettle. But still 18lbs of grains, Only the cara 30 was special malts. So it still weird that after 90 min i only got it up to .72 ish maybe i should try to isolate my kettle more. or just up my game, and build myself i rims system.

 

[wilserbrewer]

So it still weird that after 90 min i only got it up to .72 ish maybe i should try to isolate my kettle more. or just up my game, and build myself i rims system.

Without knowing how much water you added, it is hard to judge how much that dinged your efficiency, but I would assume it did.

fwiw, I kinda doubt your issue was the mash length, or the temperature or lack of insulation, I think you didn't sparge enough, and also could have collected more runnings.

Next time sparge more and collect at least 7 gallons, and boil it down. Makes a big difference.

 

[songe]

Without knowing how much water you added, it is hard to judge how much that dinged your efficiency, but I would assume it did.

fwiw, I kinda doubt your issue was the mash length, or the temperature or lack of insulation, I think you didn't sparge enough, and also could have collected more runnings.

Next time sparge more and collect at least 7 gallons, and boil it down. Makes a big difference.

well i think i wrote that i added about 6 gal of water prior to steeping,

ooh well... im building myself a nice rims system soon anyways.

 

[DurtyChemist]

I did my Belgian strong with 8 gallon of water to mash with and did a mash out.

What is your equipment? I use a keggle.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

18lb should have given me 1.090 OG.

According to what? While there is a known amount of sugar that could be extracted in every pound, or kilo, of grain there is an unknown amount that will be extracted and end up in your wort. That unknown is only discovered through testing and tweaking.

Want to make better beer? Remember this: Measure, Test, Learn.