Ooompa Loompa
Well-Known Member
So I've been wanting to make an oatmeal stout for quite sometime now. Problem is I've always done steeping grains/extract. I've never tried a PM batch. I honestly didn't think I even had the equipment for it, but then I realized I had a cooler, and a colonder that I use for straining sphagetti, and that was pretty much all I needed for a cheap, quick PM. Anyway, I threw together the following recipe:
5.5 lbs LME
6 oz roasted barley
8 oz chocolate malt
1 lb crystal 80
8 oz crystal 10
1 lb flaked oats
2 lbs 2 row
1 oz EKG
Nottingham
I put all the grains into my cooler, added 7 qts of 175 degree water, then stirred for a minute or two, and this brought my mash temp to 156 degrees. Pretty much what I was aiming for. So far so good. I put the lid on the cooler, put some blankets over it, and let it sit for just over an hour. While this hour was going by I realized my first mistake. I should have been sparging with at least 3 gallons of water, but with my brew pot the size that it is I would only be able to use 2 gallons of water. No biggy I thought to myself, I would just lose some efficiency. I knew my system wasn't that great anyway, and this was my frist PM, so I was only estimating 55% efficiency anyway. So after just over an hour goes by I take the lid off the cooler, and take the temp. 149 degrees. 7 degrees of loss isn't great, but I can deal with it. I put the collander over the brew pot, dump the grains in, and proceed to sparge with 2 gallons of water at 170 degrees.
So all the PM runnings are now in the brew pot (I haven't added any of the LME yet). It's about 3.5 gallons of wort. So I take a small sample, cool it down to around 60 degrees and take a hydrometer reading. 1.013!!! I put these numbers into promash and it looks like I only got around 25% efficiency. So, given the steps that I took above any ideas why that number is so low? The grain was crushed by the folks over at Realbeer.com. It smells great boiling, and I'm sure it will come out to be a fine beer anyway, but I'm still curious as to what could have gone wrong. I would think that just following the basic, correct steps I should be able to get 50% without even trying.
5.5 lbs LME
6 oz roasted barley
8 oz chocolate malt
1 lb crystal 80
8 oz crystal 10
1 lb flaked oats
2 lbs 2 row
1 oz EKG
Nottingham
I put all the grains into my cooler, added 7 qts of 175 degree water, then stirred for a minute or two, and this brought my mash temp to 156 degrees. Pretty much what I was aiming for. So far so good. I put the lid on the cooler, put some blankets over it, and let it sit for just over an hour. While this hour was going by I realized my first mistake. I should have been sparging with at least 3 gallons of water, but with my brew pot the size that it is I would only be able to use 2 gallons of water. No biggy I thought to myself, I would just lose some efficiency. I knew my system wasn't that great anyway, and this was my frist PM, so I was only estimating 55% efficiency anyway. So after just over an hour goes by I take the lid off the cooler, and take the temp. 149 degrees. 7 degrees of loss isn't great, but I can deal with it. I put the collander over the brew pot, dump the grains in, and proceed to sparge with 2 gallons of water at 170 degrees.
So all the PM runnings are now in the brew pot (I haven't added any of the LME yet). It's about 3.5 gallons of wort. So I take a small sample, cool it down to around 60 degrees and take a hydrometer reading. 1.013!!! I put these numbers into promash and it looks like I only got around 25% efficiency. So, given the steps that I took above any ideas why that number is so low? The grain was crushed by the folks over at Realbeer.com. It smells great boiling, and I'm sure it will come out to be a fine beer anyway, but I'm still curious as to what could have gone wrong. I would think that just following the basic, correct steps I should be able to get 50% without even trying.