Still getting problems with SG with all grain brewing

[howard86]

Hi everyone,


Warning, long post.

I posted a year or so back about having continuous mega low SG when brewing with all grain. I've still got problems with it and tried again today with a Belgian Dubbel recipe so while it's all in memory will try and explain what I did and some queries about what I might be doing wrong/possible changes for the next brew.

The recipe was the one from beerandbrewing.com but I had to change a couple of malts as I didn't have the ones specified:

5lb Maris Otter
4lb Pilsner Malt (didn't have Belgian, so used German)
1lb Munich
1lb Wheat (didn't have any malted red wheat)
1lb Aromatic (didn't have any Victory)
0.5lb Special B
0.5lb Carapils
28g Black Patent

28 Styrian Goldings 3.9% AA at 60mins
14g Sryrian Goldings 3.9% AA at 20mins

1lb Dark Candi syrup pre boil (went slightly higher as hoped it might help the SG)

Yeast Wyeast Belgian Ale 1214 with a 2 litre starter.

I mashed at 65°c / 149f for 75mins with 18.5 litres water. Mash tun is a 5 gallon Cube style cooler, with a 12" bazooka screen.
It said 64°c at the end, so didn't lose much temperature.
I did batch sparging and ran 2.5 uk gallons of wort before adding 19.4litres of sparge water at around 76°c/168f before running enough to reach just over 5 gallons (my brewing kettle I think is about 5.5 gallons, but I'm not 100%. I inherited it and original thought it was 6 but probably should check it). There was about another half gallon but I left that in the tun.

These water amounts I've used are from beersmith3. I also didn't open the valve fully when sparging but have seen people say if you batch sparge to let it drain quickly?. I let it flow about half open.

I added the candi syrup and took a SG reading which when adjusted for the temperature said it was going to be about 1.050. The recipe suggests around the 1.070. So if I used beersmith3 to work out my BH efficiency it'd be about 41% which is horrific!

Boiled for an hour, chilled and took SG again and it was 1.050. I added the yeast and with the starter it's almost 5 gallons worth.

I've attached a picture of the recipe in beersmith, it suggests it will be virtually black in colour but it isn't. The picture of the sg is with the flash so appears lighter and I know the hydrometer is crooked but it was 1.050 when it was stable.

So last time I queried this, most said it probably was the crush with the malt, I've since changed to using the Malt Miller website which has a pretty decent following. All grains are crushed pretty well as far as I can tell.

My water is 7.6 on the ph, is hard water and not treated with softener, which some thought might be iffy. I'm going to try adding some lactic acid to bring it down to 5.6 for the next attempt.

Am I using too much water when sparging? the second running's are always considerably lower in colour. I know it's the norm for it to be less but just wondered.

Is my mash tun not great, should I try and upgrade to one of the rubbermaid style ones with a false bottom?

I even emailed my local brewery and their head brewer got back to me. He said my last brew at 66°c is at the higher end and might impact extraction. He asked about things like how much sparge water/method I sparge and offered to check the recipe I was using. But unfortunately didn't reply afterwards. Corona etc I imagine and they've been making some new beers of late so probably took priority. I didn't want to email again and appear pushy.

Sorry for the long post, I just tried to get as much detail to help anyone who might have a suggestion for me. It's a bit disheartening as whenever I've tried to brew a bog standard middle of the road IPA at around 4.5% or so it comes out at about 3% and the only ones I've had marginal success with in the past have been big abv beers that still at times have required me throwing dme at it once it's done.

A huge thanks if anyone can help again, and sorry for asking the same question (albeit a year or so later).

Cheers,
Howard

 

[Velnerj]

Hi everyone,


Warning, long post.

I posted a year or so back about having continuous mega low SG when brewing with all grain. I've still got problems with it and tried again today with a Belgian Dubbel recipe so while it's all in memory will try and explain what I did and some queries about what I might be doing wrong/possible changes for the next brew.

The recipe was the one from beerandbrewing.com but I had to change a couple of malts as I didn't have the ones specified:

5lb Maris Otter
4lb Pilsner Malt (didn't have Belgian, so used German)
1lb Munich
1lb Wheat (didn't have any malted red wheat)
1lb Aromatic (didn't have any Victory)
0.5lb Special B
0.5lb Carapils
28g Black Patent

28 Styrian Goldings 3.9% AA at 60mins
14g Sryrian Goldings 3.9% AA at 20mins

1lb Dark Candi syrup pre boil (went slightly higher as hoped it might help the SG)

Yeast Wyeast Belgian Ale 1214 with a 2 litre starter.

I mashed at 65°c / 149f for 75mins with 18.5 litres water. Mash tun is a 5 gallon Cube style cooler, with a 12" bazooka screen.
It said 64°c at the end, so didn't lose much temperature.
I did batch sparging and ran 2.5 uk gallons of wort before adding 19.4litres of sparge water at around 76°c/168f before running enough to reach just over 5 gallons (my brewing kettle I think is about 5.5 gallons, but I'm not 100%. I inherited it and original thought it was 6 but probably should check it). There was about another half gallon but I left that in the tun.

These water amounts I've used are from beersmith3. I also didn't open the valve fully when sparging but have seen people say if you batch sparge to let it drain quickly?. I let it flow about half open.

I added the candi syrup and took a SG reading which when adjusted for the temperature said it was going to be about 1.050. The recipe suggests around the 1.070. So if I used beersmith3 to work out my BH efficiency it'd be about 41% which is horrific!

Boiled for an hour, chilled and took SG again and it was 1.050. I added the yeast and with the starter it's almost 5 gallons worth.

I've attached a picture of the recipe in beersmith, it suggests it will be virtually black in colour but it isn't. The picture of the sg is with the flash so appears lighter and I know the hydrometer is crooked but it was 1.050 when it was stable.

So last time I queried this, most said it probably was the crush with the malt, I've since changed to using the Malt Miller website which has a pretty decent following. All grains are crushed pretty well as far as I can tell.

My water is 7.6 on the ph, is hard water and not treated with softener, which some thought might be iffy. I'm going to try adding some lactic acid to bring it down to 5.6 for the next attempt.

Am I using too much water when sparging? the second running's are always considerably lower in colour. I know it's the norm for it to be less but just wondered.

Is my mash tun not great, should I try and upgrade to one of the rubbermaid style ones with a false bottom?

I even emailed my local brewery and their head brewer got back to me. He said my last brew at 66°c is at the higher end and might impact extraction. He asked about things like how much sparge water/method I sparge and offered to check the recipe I was using. But unfortunately didn't reply afterwards. Corona etc I imagine and they've been making some new beers of late so probably took priority. I didn't want to email again and appear pushy.

Sorry for the long post, I just tried to get as much detail to help anyone who might have a suggestion for me. It's a bit disheartening as whenever I've tried to brew a bog standard middle of the road IPA at around 4.5% or so it comes out at about 3% and the only ones I've had marginal success with in the past have been big abv beers that still at times have required me throwing dme at it once it's done.

A huge thanks if anyone can help again, and sorry for asking the same question (albeit a year or so later).

Cheers,
Howard

There a couple of things I don't understand from your post. How much water did you use total? 2.5 UK gallons + 19.4l + enough to guesstimate 5 gallons in your kettle? Is that right? That doesn't seem right to me... 19.4l is nearly 5 gallons already (at least us gallons, I'm not sure about UK gallons). I understand grain absorbtion but it seems you're possibly oversparging.

Also your gravity readings were the same before and after the boil which is almost impossible unless you boiled with the lid on and managed to capture all th e steam back into your kettle. The post boil gravity reading will always be higher the preboil gravity as you're reducing the water and concentrating the sugars. Was there a rolling boil? Did you notice a visible drop in volume in your boil kettle when the hour long boil was complete?

 

[rsquared]

Your liquid units are all over the place. You mashed in liters, ran off in UK Gallons, sparged in liters, and mention a pot size in gallons (not sure if UK or US). Beersmith lists volumes in gallons but doesn't say which. I don't use Beersmith, but I'd assume it would differentiate UK gallons.

You've got 13lbs of grain, which is about 5.9kg. Your grain absorption of water should be around 1l/kg or less, so you'd expect to lose less than 6 liters to the grain. Not sure how you're putting in nearly 38 liters and only getting out 5 gallons. Even if that's UK gallons (so 6.25 US gal) that's 23.6 liters, so you've lost 8.4 liters somewhere. Between all this and a recipe that I am guessing may be geared for US gallons, it sounds like you may be thinning everything out in the mash way too much and not running it all off. Are you leaving a ton of water behind in the mash? That would explain both the low OG and the light color.

 

[rsquared]

19.4l is nearly 5 gallons already (at least us gallons, I'm not sure about UK gallons).

UK gallons are 160oz, US is 128oz, so 25% more (5/4) or 20% lower in the other direction (4/5).

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

The jpg in the OP shows way off scale items, numerous items, for a Belgian Dubbel.

What about the equipment profile. Is the equipment profile accurate? BeerSmith relies heavily on the equipment profile and mash profile for recipe estimates.

 

[howard86]

@rsquared Sorry, I said UK gallons because I presumed most here are in the USA. Litres are the same here as there from what I gather. I wish we had a universal format as it gets a bit confusing between recipes.

The recipe I'm guessing is the usual that to get 5 gallons, you boil about 6.5gallons. But my pot is at max 6 (uk again), so I left the rest of the sparge water in the tun, which came to about half a uk gallon when I ran it off to see. .

You're right though, in UK terms, I mashed with 4 ish gallons and then beersmith called for 4.2 gallons to sparge. I always assumed it thinks that grain absorption, boil off and trub loss are included in that total.

@Tobor_8thMan yeah true, the alpha acids for the hops were lower than the one in the recipe I followed. the OG is up as I added slightly more candi sugar (as stated). and the colour, even if I didn't add the extra bit it showed too high.

I need to completely measure the boil kettle as I always thought it was 6 or so gallons. It's definitely over 5 which I've used 5 gallons as the profile one. The mash tun is definitely correct as it's got it written on it.

Thanks both of you for the replies

 

[howard86]

@Velnerj sorry, I didn't see this post first. 2.5 gallons I should have said was where I stopped at, there was still some in the tun. I'm not sure why I didn't run it off. In previous brews, I always let it all run out.

I used 18.5 litres to mash. Sparged 2.5 gallons (in litres here, its about 11.25) but as I said there was more left. Then added 19.4l as beersmith suggested. so total water used was 8.35gal (it says on the program anyway).

The gravity I got before boil was 1.032 or 1.034 I forgot to say, sorry. That was before adding the candi syrup.

 

[Velnerj]

I think yout

@rsquared Sorry, I said UK gallons because I presumed most here are in the USA. Litres are the same here as there from what I gather. I wish we had a universal format as it gets a bit confusing between recipes.

The recipe I'm guessing is the usual that to get 5 gallons, you boil about 6.5gallons. But my pot is at max 6 (uk again), so I left the rest of the sparge water in the tun, which came to about half a uk gallon when I ran it off to see. .

You're right though, in UK terms, I mashed with 4 ish gallons and then beersmith called for 4.2 gallons to sparge. I always assumed it thinks that grain absorption, boil off and trub loss are included in that total.

@Tobor_8thMan yeah true, the alpha acids for the hops were lower than the one in the recipe I followed. the OG is up as I added slightly more candi sugar (as stated). and the colour, even if I didn't add the extra bit it showed too high.

I need to completely measure the boil kettle as I always thought it was 6 or so gallons. It's definitely over 5 which I've used 5 gallons as the profile one. The mash tun is definitely correct as it's got it written on it.

Thanks both of you for the replies

Well the problem is that you're thinking UK gallons and beer Smith is calculating in us gallons.
If there's a 20% difference you're adding in about an extra gallon of water not accounted for in beersmith. Because 5 UK gallons is about 6 us gallons.

You can see beersmith is accounting for us gallons as the target volume is 5 gallons/19l which is clearly a US measurement.

Do yourself a favor and just use metric as it will be easier for you.

 

[howard86]

@Velnerj you hit the nail on the head there, I didn't realise the program was set to US units. What a mong. I've set it to imperial so it's changed the water levels completely. Can't believe who stupid I was not to realise that. Thanks again!

 

[Sammy86]

I'm gonna keep my response pretty simple for you...

1.

Do yourself a favor and just use metric as it will be easier for you.

Once you have everything in BS as metric than you can adjust the recipe and see where your problems are. I didn't do any conversation and could tell you used way too much water.

Also as far as efficiency goes, have you tested the hydrometer with water to make sure it reads 1.000? I have a feeling your hydrometer may be off.

Hope this helps and good luck!

 

[howard86]

@Sammy86 Thanks bud, I can't believe something as obvious as not having the damn program in uk units has been the cause.

I checked the hydrometer today and it was bang on 1.000 in tap water. I'll try and pencil in a brew day this week to see how things go with a bog standard english IPA recipe. I'm feeling a lot more positive now!

 

[Velnerj]

Well on the bright side problem solved and it was an easy fix. Brew on!

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

@Sammy86 Thanks bud, I can't believe something as obvious as not having the damn program in uk units has been the cause.

I checked the hydrometer today and it was bang on 1.000 in tap water. I'll try and pencil in a brew day this week to see how things go with a bog standard english IPA recipe. I'm feeling a lot more positive now!

Let's share a laugh, raise a glass as we've all done, at least I've done, something similar and learn from our experience as we enjoy each other's trials and tribulations.

 

[howard86]

@Tobor_8thMan yep, I can see the funny side of it, bit like the time I had some hawthorne berry wine fermenting and it blew up and repainted the walls and ceiling. Seems awful at first, but then you have to laugh at the stupidity. Least now I wont be raging whenever the beer turns out completely wrong after hours wasted on a brew day. Cheers buddy

 

[Tobor_8thMan]

" repainted the walls and ceiling " isn't this just another Peter Maxx creation?