woodmansee
Active Member
Im a fairly experienced brewer (~20 batches), but have hit a major snag in my brewing and need some community knowledge to figure out my problem.
The background: I moved to the Houston TX area a while back. All but two of my brews were done prior to moving down here. Previously was in south central Ohio. AG brewer, batch sparging.
The problem: The last two brews I have done here in Texas have been minor disasters. The long and short of it is that on both brews I have ended up with roughly half my intended final volume, but almost dead on my target OG! So somehow I am losing tons of water but ending up almost right where I intended to be on sugar content (so I presumably had half as much sugar as intended coming out of the mash). So why is this happening?? I never had this problem in Ohio, my mashes always worked as intended, and my volume was always around my intended volume.
The nuts and bolts: All grain brewer. Buy my supplies from one of the main shops in the city of houston. Generally do 1.5 q/lb mash thickness. Batch sparge at 170 with appropriate water to achieve preboil volume. I use tap water both in Texas and previously in Ohio. Both beers brewed in Texas were pretty standard beers (pale ale and American wheat beer) so nothing crazy going on there. Use brewers friend app for calculations etc. Use a propane burner for boiling so can achieve good boil in all temps. My mash tub is technically different now than what I used in Ohio, but still a cooler with wire hose in bottom. I have a probe there providing constant temp monitoring of the mash, which has held steady both brews.
Working theories: I am kind of at a loss. My best guess is that my water quality here in Texas is so shitty that my mash is crazy inefficient and my preboil gravity is way off. I haven’t measured that on my last two brews but plan to on my next. In conjunction with this, I believe I am boiling off at a much higher rate than I previously did in Ohio (perhaps due to elevation and temperature differences, but I honestly don’t know). I am also concerned that brewers friend is not accounting for grain absorption in its volume calculations for the mash which could also be affecting volume. But I would really love some input from other brewers on what may be going wrong here. It’s so frustrating!
The background: I moved to the Houston TX area a while back. All but two of my brews were done prior to moving down here. Previously was in south central Ohio. AG brewer, batch sparging.
The problem: The last two brews I have done here in Texas have been minor disasters. The long and short of it is that on both brews I have ended up with roughly half my intended final volume, but almost dead on my target OG! So somehow I am losing tons of water but ending up almost right where I intended to be on sugar content (so I presumably had half as much sugar as intended coming out of the mash). So why is this happening?? I never had this problem in Ohio, my mashes always worked as intended, and my volume was always around my intended volume.
The nuts and bolts: All grain brewer. Buy my supplies from one of the main shops in the city of houston. Generally do 1.5 q/lb mash thickness. Batch sparge at 170 with appropriate water to achieve preboil volume. I use tap water both in Texas and previously in Ohio. Both beers brewed in Texas were pretty standard beers (pale ale and American wheat beer) so nothing crazy going on there. Use brewers friend app for calculations etc. Use a propane burner for boiling so can achieve good boil in all temps. My mash tub is technically different now than what I used in Ohio, but still a cooler with wire hose in bottom. I have a probe there providing constant temp monitoring of the mash, which has held steady both brews.
Working theories: I am kind of at a loss. My best guess is that my water quality here in Texas is so shitty that my mash is crazy inefficient and my preboil gravity is way off. I haven’t measured that on my last two brews but plan to on my next. In conjunction with this, I believe I am boiling off at a much higher rate than I previously did in Ohio (perhaps due to elevation and temperature differences, but I honestly don’t know). I am also concerned that brewers friend is not accounting for grain absorption in its volume calculations for the mash which could also be affecting volume. But I would really love some input from other brewers on what may be going wrong here. It’s so frustrating!
