2nd AG and have just a few questions. .

[GLoBaLReBeL]

Ok, so my first AG I got extremely low gravity! What was supposed to be 1.048 ended up being 1.031 and I was given some pointers and I think everything really turned out much better. Let me give you the skinny . . .

Beer : AHS Stone IPA Clone (13 lb grains)
Strike water : 5 Gallons @ 152F
Mash : 73 minutes at 152F, ended at 150F. SG of mash = 1.069 with 3.4 Gallons (stirred once at 40 minute mark for about 15 seconds.)
Sparge : 3.3 Gallons at 180F for 10 minutes.
Final Volume of beer = 6.6 Gallons into kettle
Boil time : 60 Minutes (added white labs fermentation capsule as well at 10 minute mark. Told this stuff helps with a stronger fermentation of higher gravity beers)
Final Volume after boil : 5.1 Gallons. OG = 1.064 (Target of 1.066) I added 0.4 Gallons of water to get to the 5.5 mark (Don't know what this brought my OG down to, but I'm guessing 1.062 or 1.061)

I used a 1 liter starter of White Labs 002. Pitched cold into 76F wort. I checked the carboy the next morning (6 hours later) and it was fermenting away! I have it sitting in a water bath at around 66-68F for fermentation.

I feel this one went a hell of a lot better but I want to know if I did anything incorrectly. Should I have mashed at a lower temp because I was mashing for longer this time? I know that I'm brewing an IPA so I think I should have mashed at 149F for 90 minutes, but I still am having a hard time with understanding that.
I also found that I can no longer use my immersion wort chiller. My 12 gallon kettle is just way to wide for it and it doesn't look like it is able to cool it down enough anymore. I think I'm going to build a counterflow chiller and use the immersion chiller to pre-chill the water.

So, can anyone see anything that I did wrong? Any critics that can give me some pointers for my next batch? I am going to be brewing a AHS Platinum Baverian Weizen, it uses a special strain from white labs that is only available from April to June. (I wanted to wash the yeast so I can use it with some other styles to see the outcome.)

 

[halite]

All looks good. A 60 minute Mash is plenty. I am a homebrewer in Ireland and nobody over here mashes for 90 minutes. The majority of the conversion happens in the first 20 minutes of a mash and so 60 minutes is plenty.

I added 0.4 Gallons of water to get to the 5.5 mark (Don't know what this brought my OG down to, but I'm guessing 1.062 or 1.061)

In future you should take a gravity reading before you pitch your yeast, this will halp you work out your ABV, but will also let you know if anything has gone wrong, or been miscalculated.

 

[GLoBaLReBeL]

I took the gravity reading before adding the water to the final wort and it was 1.064 but it was only 5.1 gallons of water and I needed 5.5. So I added the extra 0.4 gallons to get to 5.5 and then pitched the yeast. Do you happen to know the equation to find out what my SG was after adding the 0.4 gallons of water?

Bobby_M has helped me out with this before but I've never been told the actual equation. Maybe he has some insight.

The 73 minute sparge was only becuase I did a 60 minute last time at 154F and after all was said and done, my gravity came out to be VERY LOW. So, I wanted to sparge for a longer period and make sure I got total conversion. (Which kinda worked, seeing as I was shooting for 1.066 and only got 1.064. I was under the impression that your mash gravity should be much higher then the OG because of how high in sugar the mash is, and after adding in the sparge water it would bring it down since the sparge water is much lower in sugar.)

 

[halite]

I took the gravity reading before adding the water to the final wort and it was 1.064 but it was only 5.1 gallons of water and I needed 5.5. So I added the extra 0.4 gallons to get to 5.5 and then pitched the yeast. Do you happen to know the equation to find out what my SG was after adding the 0.4 gallons of water?

Not 100% sure if this is the right way to do it, but if your initial reading was 1064 for 5.1 gallons and you were aiming for 5.5 gallons, then this would seam reasonable:

(64/5.5)5.1 = 59 (i.e. 1059)

I was under the impression that your mash gravity should be much higher then the OG because of how high in sugar the mash is, and after adding in the sparge water it would bring it down since the sparge water is much lower in sugar.)

Yes your first runnings from the mash tun will be very high, and then as you do your sparging the gravity of the wort from your second and third runnings will be increasingly lower. I do not measure my pre-boil gravity until I have collected all of the runnings in my boiler. This measurement will then be able to give you your efficiency level.

I have only ever mashed for 60 minues and I get an efficiency of between 78 and 80%

 

[GLoBaLReBeL]

I didn't measure the gravity of the entire boil before boiling . . . I will do that next time.

Your calculations seem to be correct, so that would put me .007 points behind what I needed to be at. Which is odd to me because I don't understand why I am not hitting what I should be. I use RO water, but I would think that would have NOTHING to do with it. I'm thinking about getting a water report done on my standard water to see how good/bad it is, so I no longer have to worry about buying water from the store.

 

[halite]

Also on another point, if you find yourself with 5.1 gallons of 1064 after the boil. I would probably just stick with that instead of topping it up to 5.5

 

[GLoBaLReBeL]

Well, with the amount of trub that I will have, plus dry hopping, I wanted to be left with around 5 gallons of beer to put into the kegs so 5.5 is what I usually shoot for. I'm hoping next time I won't have to worry about this as I will add a little more water to the sparge, so that after my 60 min boil I'll have 5.5 gallons of water rather then 5.1

 

[halite]

Thats exactly the way to do it. I always find that whatever amount I have calculated for my sparge volume, always have an extra gallon on hand just in case.

hope the brew turns out well.

 

[jjyoung]

You can use the same calculations to determine what your SG will be at the end of the boil as long as you know the gravity and volume prior to the boil and your boil off rate. That way you can add a little DME at the start of the boil if you're going to be low.