2nd PM...not so hot....

[shunoshi]

So, I did up my 2nd PM last night and it had appeared to go off without a hitch. It was a modified version of EdWort's Haus Pale Ale.

3 lbs. American 2-Row
1 lb. 10 oz. Vienna
6 oz. Crystal 10L

3 lbs. Light DME

All Cascade hops (6.6 AAU)
1 oz at 60 min.
.5 oz at 30 min.
.25 oz at 15 min.
.25 oz at 5 min.

I mashed the grains in 6 quarts of water at 155 for 50 minutes, lost 2 degrees to finish at 153. Did a batch sparge with another 6 quarts (in 2 batches, MLT is only 2 gallons ). Ended up with 2.5 gallons to boil with. Added 1 lb. of DME, brought to a boil for 60 minutes, followed the hop schedule listed above, and added the remaining 2 lbs. of DME at flameout. Let sit for 10 minutes, the cooled in an ice bath to roughly 70 degrees. Strained it into the bucket with top off water and checked my gravity before pitching......

At 66 degrees Fahrenheit, 1.042?!

I'm at a loss, could I really have gotten a miserable 42% efficiency?? Nothing appeared to go wrong during the brew session, so I'm trying to figure out what was so different from my first PM where I hit 75% efficiency.

Can mash water make that big of a difference? That's really the only difference between these two brews. I used filtered tap water this time around and my first PM used bottled spring water. If anyone has some ideas as to what the culprit is, let me know.

Guess I'll have myself a batch of Haus Ale Light.

 

[Joker]

Sessions Haus Ale

 

[FatMonsters]

Did you stir it up before grabbing an initial sample? If it wasn't completed mixed you could get a lower OG reading. I also calculated a 53% efficiency (But that was assuming 5 gallons and 42 points for the DME), still low I know...

 

[shunoshi]

Did you stir it up before grabbing an initial sample? If it wasn't completed mixed you could get a lower OG reading. I also calculated a 53% efficiency (Assuming 5 gallons), still low I know...

Yeah, I had it thoroughly stirred since that's my form of aeration. I pretty much beat the hell out of it. 53% makes me feel better than 42%, but still crazy low.

Sessions Haus Ale

Haha, that's exactly what I was thinking.

 

[Evan!]

What about your crush? Did your grains come precrushed or do you have a mill?

 

[FatMonsters]

Yeah, I had it thoroughly stirred since that's my form of aeration. I pretty much beat the hell out of it. 53% makes me feel better than 42%, but still crazy low.

Maybe the crush of the grains?

53 vs 42, yeah still low...

 

[shunoshi]

What about your crush? Did your grains come precrushed or do you have a mill?

I pick up all of my supplies from Midwest and have them crush it on site. The crush looked good to me (they usually do a pretty good job), but I can't really think of many other things that could have caused this low efficiency. I'm unsure how often they have to adjust their mill, but they crushed my grains for me on my Two Hearted Ale batch about three weeks ago and that brew turned out exactly as planned.

A corona mill is one of the items up next on my beer gear list though.

 

[Joker]

A corona mill is one of the items up next on my beer gear list though.

Have you read all the mill reviews?

I know some like them but it seems a lot more get better results from other mills.

 

[Evan!]

Screw a corona mill. You'll eventually want to go AG, and then that corona will be all but worthless (unless you like crushing 12 lbs of grains by hand), and then you'll do what you should have done in the first place: buy a Barley Crusher. It's a little expensive, but worth every penny.

 

[shunoshi]

Have you read all the mill reviews?

I know some like them but it seems a lot more get better results from other mills.

I haven't done any research as of yet. I will dig in when the time comes though.

Screw a corona mill. You'll eventually want to go AG, and then that corona will be all but worthless (unless you like crushing 12 lbs of grains by hand), and then you'll do what you should have done in the first place: buy a Barley Crusher. It's a little expensive, but worth every penny.

Ah, yeah, that doesn't sound fun at all. I'll keep this in mind come research time.