blitzballer2201
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- Oct 18, 2017
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It seems like for the past few years I never hit my gravity, I have been making adjustments to my brewday that help with "improving" gravity and I never seem to hit it. So im reaching out to you all for help! Ill lay out what a typical brew day is for me and please let me know where I am screwing up.
info on equipment -
I use clawhammer biab electric system.
Ingredients come pre-milled and typically from northernbrewer.com (sometimes from local shop)
I use a refractometer that is calibrated to the water that I am brewing with that day before heat.
I use Brewers Friend and Beersmith3 for my calculations.
Brewday -
I use 7gl of spring water for brew day I buy at a store since I am on a well, use all volume at start, no sparge since its biab.
typical mash in temp is 157 - after adding grains I hold 152 for an hour is typical (this is used with a controller so temperature is held very accurately)
After 10 minutes into mash I always take a pH reading, adjust with lactic/phosphoric acid to appropriate levels.
after 50 more minutes I start to mash out - hitting 170 mash out temp takes about 30 minutes (raise temperature not infusion) than I hold that for about 10 minutes. So grains are sitting in water for about 2 hours.
After mash out I start to drain the grain in the grain basket. - Dump the grains
Once I have collected my wort, I take my first refractometer (use calc to adjust for temperature) reading to see my pre-boil gravity - I ALWAYS anticipate never hitting my pre-boil gravity.
There is something.. in the above steps that I am doing wrong. My pre-boil gravity is always off. Sometimes by alot. Last weekend it was off by 20 points.... I ended up just adding 2lb of DME since thats all I had. I would have needed to boil off like 2 gallons of water to hit my pre-boil gravity so I opted for the DME.
Once my pre-boil gravity is achieved I typically hit my OG. But hitting my pre-boil is always off.
The only things I can think of that maybe I can try:
1. buy grains not milled, buy a mill, mill on brew day.
2. bring back sparge, I have not sparged since I swapped from old cooler setup to new biab electric since they said to not sparge with biab. But I was not hitting gravity when I used my old setup either so not optimistic.
info on equipment -
I use clawhammer biab electric system.
Ingredients come pre-milled and typically from northernbrewer.com (sometimes from local shop)
I use a refractometer that is calibrated to the water that I am brewing with that day before heat.
I use Brewers Friend and Beersmith3 for my calculations.
Brewday -
I use 7gl of spring water for brew day I buy at a store since I am on a well, use all volume at start, no sparge since its biab.
typical mash in temp is 157 - after adding grains I hold 152 for an hour is typical (this is used with a controller so temperature is held very accurately)
After 10 minutes into mash I always take a pH reading, adjust with lactic/phosphoric acid to appropriate levels.
after 50 more minutes I start to mash out - hitting 170 mash out temp takes about 30 minutes (raise temperature not infusion) than I hold that for about 10 minutes. So grains are sitting in water for about 2 hours.
After mash out I start to drain the grain in the grain basket. - Dump the grains
Once I have collected my wort, I take my first refractometer (use calc to adjust for temperature) reading to see my pre-boil gravity - I ALWAYS anticipate never hitting my pre-boil gravity.
There is something.. in the above steps that I am doing wrong. My pre-boil gravity is always off. Sometimes by alot. Last weekend it was off by 20 points.... I ended up just adding 2lb of DME since thats all I had. I would have needed to boil off like 2 gallons of water to hit my pre-boil gravity so I opted for the DME.
Once my pre-boil gravity is achieved I typically hit my OG. But hitting my pre-boil is always off.
The only things I can think of that maybe I can try:
1. buy grains not milled, buy a mill, mill on brew day.
2. bring back sparge, I have not sparged since I swapped from old cooler setup to new biab electric since they said to not sparge with biab. But I was not hitting gravity when I used my old setup either so not optimistic.
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