Only 2 gp's from 2.5 lbs of grain. What happened?

[Dsh1109]

Today I brewed an IPL, I usually do all grain but this time I did extract. I had 6lbs of DME 1lb of Vienna grain and 1.5lbs of munich grain, I added the extract, the water salts and the grain all at room temperature then heated it up to 170ish when I took the grains out. The crush was fine I stirred several times and bobbed the bag up and down a lot. The og came out to 1.053 when it was supposed to be 1.066 or 10.63 if you say I had .25 gallons of extra water which might be possible but a stretch. What happened? it took a solid 30 minutes to get to that temp and last time I did this with .5 lbs of distillers malt and 2 lbs of corn and .25lbs of minute rice it worked out just fine. im going to add .75 lbs of sugar to wort as I like how it dries out beers and I was thinking about doing it anyway but especially now that the gravity is off. my crush was fine and brewers friend said the recipe with just the extract should've had a gravity of 1.051 so I only got 2 gravity points from it. What do you guys think?

 

[camonick]

How much water? If it was 6-7 gallons for say a 5 gallon batch. That amount of grain would be in the steeping category rather than a mash and you probably wouldn’t get proper conversion. (Too thin) They would only contribute flavor rather than the expected sugar had they been mashed separately in a smaller amount of water. Steeping them with the DME may have changed something too, usually the extract is added after the steep and the boil is established. That’s just my guess... maybe somebody else can elaborate or correct me. You may have gotten the results you expected had you done a partial or mini mash, but the procedure you described doing wasn’t that.

 

[NTBeer]

If you added 2.5 lbs of grain to 170 degree water, this was much too high to mash. You denatured the enzymes. Conversion happens around 145 - 156 degrees. This amount of grain is too small to bring that much water back down into that range. Google "mash temperature calculators" to get a temperature that is appropriate for the amount of grain and water you are using.

 

[Dsh1109]

How much water? If it was 6-7 gallons for say a 5 gallon batch. That amount of grain would be in the steeping category rather than a mash and you probably wouldn’t get proper conversion. (Too thin) They would only contribute flavor rather than the expected sugar had they been mashed separately in a smaller amount of water. Steeping them with the DME may have changed something too, usually the extract is added after the steep and the boil is established. That’s just my guess... maybe somebody else can elaborate or correct me. You may have gotten the results you expected had you done a partial or mini mash, but the procedure you described doing wasn’t that.

It was 6.25 gallons of water. Im wondering why I didn't have this problem when I did this before with the corn and distillers malt.

If you added 2.5 lbs of grain to 170 degree water, this was much too high to mash. You denatured the enzymes. Conversion happens around 145 - 156 degrees. This amount of grain is too small to bring that much water back down into that range. Google "mash temperature calculators" to get a temperature that is appropriate for the amount of grain and water you are using.

I added the grains at room temperature not at 170, I pulled them once I hit 170.

 

[Yooper]

It was 6.25 gallons of water. Im wondering why I didn't have this problem when I did this before with the corn and distillers malt.


I added the grains at room temperature not at 170, I pulled them once I hit 170.

Next time, mash the grains in water with 1-2 quarts of water per pound of grain at 150-155 (not cold water that you heat up). Hold for 45 minutes, then lift out the grain into a strainer and pour water over the grain to rinse it (sparge). Then get to your boil volume by adding more water, bring to a boil and add the extract. By steeping the grains in the extract starting in cold water (that sounds like what you did), you didn’t mash the grains.

 

[rburrelli]

Next time, mash the grains in water with 1-2 quarts of water per pound of grain at 150-155 (not cold water that you heat up). Hold for 45 minutes, then lift out the grain into a strainer and pour water over the grain to rinse it (sparge). Then get to your boil volume by adding more water, bring to a boil and add the extract. By steeping the grains in the extract starting in cold water (that sounds like what you did), you didn’t mash the grains.

I concur. By doing it the way you did the grains were not mashed long enough to extract the sugars to reach your targeted gravity.