2 batches, perplexing numbers on both

[Jtk78]

I brewed up two batches yesterday, including my first all grain batch. All in all, it was a success. They are bubbling away nicely through their blowoff setups. Both batches had a few numbers that seemed off.

The first batch was a sweat stout that I did a partial mash on. Beersmith said I should have had a 1.023 pre-boil SG, and a 1.066 OG. I hit 1.017 and 1.055. When I was low on my pre-boil, I did ponder adding some dme, but I let it ride.

Recipe
2lb - Crisp British Base malt
1lb - Crisp crystal 77L malt
1lb - Crisp chocolate malt
1lb - flaked oats
1lb - flaked barley
5lbs - liquid malt extract added with 15mins left in boil
1lb - lactose added 10 mins left in boil
1 - oz of fuggle hops at 60

1st question is did I have enough base malt in there to get proper conversion?
Process - I put the all of the grains (that I crushed, did not crush flaked grain) in a large fine mesh bag (thanks wilserbrewer), heated 2.25g of 165f water in kettle, put the grain bad in, mixed and mashed it up until temp settled to 153f. Covered, threw a hoodie and jacket on it. 15 mins later, temp was 140ish. I fired the burner back up and got it back up to 152f. 15 mins later the temp was about 150. Let it be. 15 mins later and it's back to about 142, so I re-heated again to 152 for the last 15 mins.
Sparge time. Had my HLT next to and above kettle with a hose on it. Lifted bag and poured water over bag, turning and flipping and trying to squeeze it. It really became quite the mess. It was hot, my hands were sticky, burning, dripping everywhere. In a last ditch effort, I grabbed the lid of the kettle and tried to squeezable against that. I also realized a poked a hole in my awesome bag checking temp. If I plan to go this route again, I need to improve this sparge a bag area.
The rest of the batch was uneventful, so I'm guessing it was either a poor sparge or grain bill that led to low numbers. Weird that I missed my pre-boil by .005 and my OG by .011 though. Volumes were spot on.

Batch 2 - NEIPA, 1st all grain batch. This batch was fun. I got to use the MLT (13g cooler with a wilserbrewer bag), HLT, and mash paddle I made. It smelled great, tasted great. Plus sparging was a breeze compared to the other batch. I missed my volume a little bit, ended up with exactly 5g in the fermenter. Was aiming for 5.5. I think half was not quite starting with enough, the other was more boil off than expected.
Beersmith predicted 1.055 pre-boil SG and 1.065 OG. I hit 1.060 pre-boil and 1.065 OG. When I was over on my pre-boil, I got pretty happy. I was sure to mix the kettle very well before I took the sample too. I found it very weird that it only went up 5 points, especially when I was a bit low on expected volume. I can post the grain bill if you need it.

Any thoughts on either batch? Many thanks in advance.

 

[billl]

1) Not enough base grain to get good conversion. You'll want at least 50% malted grain or your conversion can start to suffer.

2) User error on the measurements. There is a fixed amount of sugar in the wort. The only thing the boils off is the water. Gravity measurement errors are pretty common. The other common error is that liquid expands when hot. If you are measuring volume for hot liquid and comparing it to measurements of room temp liquid, you will get suspect measurements for boil rates etc.

 

[Jtk78]

1) Not enough base grain to get good conversion. You'll want at least 50% malted grain or your conversion can start to suffer.

2) User error on the measurements. There is a fixed amount of sugar in the wort. The only thing the boils off is the water. Gravity measurement errors are pretty common. The other common error is that liquid expands when hot. If you are measuring volume for hot liquid and comparing it to measurements of room temp liquid, you will get suspect measurements for boil rates etc.

Thanks you for the reply. I will note I cooled any hydrometer reading samples prior to measuring. My hydrometer is calibrated to 60f, warmest sample was 66f.

1 - I feared that answer as soon as I got the pre-boil reading. Do you think this will effect the taste much, or just the ABV?

2 - I won't say I couldn't have messed up the readings, but I was fairly confident. I took the reading, wrote it on a post it, then let the hydrometer sit in the sample and came back a few minutes later, gave it a spin and re-checked. Once confirmed, I recorded the value. One time I was a couple points different than my post it so I left and reread a few minutes later.

 

[jmitchell3]

Thanks you for the reply. I will note I cooled any hydrometer reading samples prior to measuring. My hydrometer is calibrated to 60f, warmest sample was 66f.



1 - I feared that answer as soon as I got the pre-boil reading. Do you think this will effect the taste much, or just the ABV?



2 - I won't say I couldn't have messed up the readings, but I was fairly confident. I took the reading, wrote it on a post it, then let the hydrometer sit in the sample and came back a few minutes later, gave it a spin and re-checked. Once confirmed, I recorded the value. One time I was a couple points different than my post it so I left and reread a few minutes later.

I usually allow for my measurements to be off by up to 2 pts due to user error (user=me). Im not usually off by more than 1. Brewed an ipa yesterday, for instance, my preboil volume was 7.75 gallons (target was 7.5), and gravity was 1.048 (target 1.049). The math on that is 7.75 * 48 = 372. Postboil gravity measured 6.75 gallons at 1.056. Back to the math... 372 / 6.75 = 55.11 or 1.055. So that matches my hydrometer reading within my 2 points.

Its just a quick way to verify your hydrometer reading is in the range of believability!

 

[Jtk78]

That helps me confirm something is completly array.

6.25 (pre-boil, was closers to 6.5 which would make math even worse)*60=375
375÷5 (fermenter volume) = 75, or 1.075.
Again, I measured 1.065.

This math really helped, and I will use it in the future. Thanks.

 

[Jtk78]

Both of these beers were pitched with WY1318 that I built up from a single smack pack. Built a 1.4 liter starter to begin with. Cold crashed it, decanter it, and built a 1.6 liter starter that got cold crashed, decanter and split into 2 flasks. Then I made 2 1.5 liter starters and pitched those after crashing and decanting.

The NEIPA took off nicely. In fact I just harvested it and did my first dry hop.

The stout is bubbling through the blow off, but the krausen is nothing compared to the NEIPA. I figured this is mostly because there's less fermentable sugars. Should I add some sugar or other fermentable to it, or just let it ride and do the cold brew coffee I planned on doing at bottling?