Low OG on first AG brew. Question on adding DME

[MrMikeAZ]

Hello, my recipe is as follows for a 5 gallon brew:

6 lbs vienna
1 lb munich(german)
1/2 lb crystal 10
1/2 lb crystal 30
1/4 german black caraffe
1/4 carafoam

boiling(50 minutes) 1/2 oz magnum
flavoring(20 minutes) 1 oz Tettnanger
Aroma(7 minutes) 1/2 oz Strisselspalt

wyeast no starter:
Oktoberfest lager
bohemian lager

O.G. 1.022(goal was 1.051 according to beersmith)[wort was shaken well and mixed before grav was taken.]

I think overall the recipe needed about 2 lbs more grain, but besides that, I heated my water(8.75 quarts) to 168 and added grain. Goal was 154 but water only dropped to 164 and I added some extra water and stirred. Took about 10 minutes. This is when I started the boil timer. I lost heat to 148 in 20 minutes, got heat back up to 154 and maintained 153-155 for another 50 minutes. Iodine test confirmed conversion. I used deathbrewers' stovetop method. I plan on building a cooler this weekend.

The thing I would like to know is can I leave this as is or should I add DME or something? Can I add this tomorrow if needed since I have nothing on hand right now?

What kind of low OG would make someone want to add extract normally?

 

[pkeeler]

I think you are missing all the base malt, probably 5 lbs worth. That is why your OG is low and your mash temp was high. I'd be curious if the crystal malts even converted since vienna is low is diastatic power. But you got 22 gravity points from it, wherever it came from.

Adding DME into the boil is a no brainer. But we are past that. Whatever I think of adding DME (boil 3 lbs for 15 min and cool to fermentation temp) to the fermenter has got to be better than what you will get now.

Another option, add 4 lbs of honey to the fermenter and call it Braggot. You don't have to boil the honey.

 

[dcp27]

I think you are missing all the base malt, probably 5 lbs worth. That is why your OG is low and your mash temp was high. I'd be curious if the crystal malts even converted since vienna is low is diastatic power. But you got 22 gravity points from it, wherever it came from.

Adding DME into the boil is a no brainer. But we are past that. Whatever I think of adding DME (boil 3 lbs for 15 min and cool to fermentation temp) to the fermenter has got to be better than what you will get now.

Another option, add 4 lbs of honey to the fermenter and call it Braggot. You don't have to boil the honey.

Vienna/munich can be used as a base malt, they have enough power to convert themselves and crystal is converted in the kilning process, so I don't think that's where the problem came from. I'm not sure, but it's possible 10mins above 160 was enough to deactivate some of the enzymes and you were just limited. Your test confirmed conversion though, so maybe it just wasn't well mixed. How much water did you top it with? Also, was the hydrometer reading at 60F or temperature adjusted?

 

[pkeeler]

Vienna/munich can be used as a base malt, they have enough power to convert themselves and crystal is converted in the kilning process, so I don't think that's where the problem came from. I'm not sure, but it's possible 10mins above 160 was enough to deactivate some of the enzymes and you were just limited. Your test confirmed conversion though, so maybe it just wasn't well mixed. How much water did you top it with? Also, was the hydrometer reading at 60F or temperature adjusted?

I was probably unclear. I meant he is missing 5 lbs of base malt because his gravity is low. But now that I've had my coffee, he does have 8 lbs of grain. I don't think it is enough to get to 1.055, but he should have been able to reach 1.040+.

Which brings me to my next insight, what temp. was the wort when you took your hydrometer reading? Did you correct for the temp.?

 

[dcp27]

I was probably unclear. I meant he is missing 5 lbs of base malt because his gravity is low. But now that I've had my coffee, he does have 8 lbs of grain. I don't think it is enough to get to 1.055, but he should have been able to reach 1.040+.

Which brings me to my next insight, what temp. was the wort when you took your hydrometer reading? Did you correct for the temp.?

Gotcha. good guess on the OG, damn near impossible (about 100% efficiency) to get 1.055 with that bill. It should have been somewhere around 1.038-1.046.

 

[MrMikeAZ]

Temp for OG was taken at 60 degrees. I also forgot to say I sparged for 12 minutes at 169-170 [edit]but did not stir much[/edit].

Top off water was less than a 16 oz bottle of water on the original mash. I added about 3 gallons of water to the carboy as I had a lot of absorption and loss from boil.

What would have caused my temp to not drop by what was "supposedly" calculated by Beersmith when I added my grain?

 

[DocBrown]

I suspect that beersmith wasn't adjusting temperatures for a pre-heated MLT. I haven't read through the thread on the stovetop method, but I'm assuming that you heat your mash water in a large pot and then drop a mesh bag with your grains into that same pot. The metal walls of the pot were likely at a higher temperature than your water since the pot was in direct contact with your stove eye. Probably your best bet is to get your water up to temperature then turn down your heat and make sure it's stable for 10 minutes before you add your grains.

To give you a comparison, I use a 10gallon cooler MLT and preheat it before I put in mash water at the right temperature. For my last batch, I had 14.5lbs of grain that was sitting outside on a fairly cool day (mid 50s) for a while before I mashed. I heated my mash water to 163deg. and when I added the grains it stabilized at 152deg. So your temperature drop of 4deg. seems a bit small, but I would have been very surprised to see 168deg. water get all the way down to 154deg.

The next time you brew, be sure to grab a sample of your wort from your brew kettle when you get done sparging. Cool it off in your freezer or something and drop your hydrometer in it to find your pre-boil gravity. There is an equation to calculate your post-boil gravity from pre-boil, which would allow you to estimate what you'll end up with. If your gravity is too low, you can dump in some extra DME during your boil to get your gravity closer to your target.

I ran into a similar issue with temperature control on my second AG batch:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/help-2nd-ag-brew-151491/#post1737908
High temperatures early on, and when I added ice, I dropped the temperatures too low. I did add DME during the last part of my boil and that helped, though my OG is still a lot lower than I intended. Still, the beer is bottle conditioning now and will hopefully taste really good in a couple months! (Early taste test says it's okay, but it's a Belgian Strong Dark and needs more time to mellow.)