Is my grainbed too shallow?

[primalyeti]

Hey everyone,

I did my first brew on saturday and well, i missed my target gravity by quite a bit. Target original gravity was 1.045 and I ended up with 1.034. I plan on trying a few different things next time to see if I get better/worse results, but the one question I had was: is my grain bed too shallow?

I have a 47 liter cooler as a mash ton, but i'm only making 7.5 liter batches. I've been playing with beersmith and the recipe called for 2 kg of grain, and 6L of strike water. The grain was completely covered, but because its such a big cooler the volume is spread out; i figure the grain bed was about 3-4 inches deep. Would this produce a lower gravity, or should I be more concerned with the quality of the grain milling, the sparging technique or temperatures?

Thank you very much for any help

 

[duboman]

I would start with crush, pH, temps and sparging as those are the usual culprits

 

[primalyeti]

Glad to hear im on the same page

Hopefully my sparging going better this weekend.

Thanks for the quick reply!

 

[Near-Beer-Engineer]

A similar question was asked here:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f13/shallow-grain-beds-475410/

I don't think the depth of the bed should matter much if it's covered up completely with water. Make sure you get it to an even consistency (no clumps) and give enough time for conversion. Batch sparging should work fine. And like the previous poster said, crush and pH can play a role as well.