Advantageous Weizenbock V.2

[brewbama]

10 brews ago, I brewed the Advantageous Weizenbock (All Grain) recipe from Northern Brewer and missed my OG by a large margin. The beer turned out great but I would like to get full potential from the kit. I believe I've learned a lot in the last 10 brews so I expect more this time around.

The last time I ordered the kit crushed but I have since received a malt mill from Santa. I've brewed twice crushing my own grain now with good results. I condition my malt and mill to .030 and plan to add rice hulls. I am considering tightening the crush just a bit more to .025 but I am hesitant with all that wheat malt.

I am also considering single infusion mashing thin 1.33 qts/lb and resting 90 min then Batch Sparging.

I would like to get other ideas about how to hit my O.G.

Here's some info on the recipe for those unfamiliar:

O.G: 1.084 READY: 12 WEEKS

Suggested fermentation schedule:
-- 1–2 weeks primary; 6–8 weeks cold
secondary; 2 weeks bottle conditioning

MASH INGREDIENTS
-- 8 lbs. Weyermann Pale Wheat malt
-- 6 lbs. German Munich malt
-- 2 lbs. German Pilsner malt
-- 0.5 lbs. CaraAroma

BOIL ADDITIONS & TIMES
-- 1 oz. German Perle (first wort)
-- 1 oz. Hersbrucker (15 min)

 

[Weezy]

Hitting your OG is all about you developing a repeatable process. Theres 50 ways to do it. Yours is different than mine and those are different than the next guys.

You say you missed your OG pretty bad? Low I'm guessing since you're tightening your mill? that's fine as long you don't run into lautering problems and stuck sparges. water: grain ratio isn't duper critical except for pH issues.

How are you maintaining mash temps?

Are you stirring? How often?

How long? One hour?

How are you sparging?

Are you checking pH?

Tap water or filtered or bottled/jug water? are you adjusting water? in the mash or sparges or both?

 

[brewbama]

Hitting your OG is all about you developing a repeatable process. Theres 50 ways to do it. Yours is different than mine and those are different than the next guys.

You say you missed your OG pretty bad? Low I'm guessing since you're tightening your mill? that's fine as long you don't run into lautering problems and stuck sparges. water: grain ratio isn't duper critical except for pH issues.

How are you maintaining mash temps? My picnic cooler maintains good temps over long periods.

Are you stirring? How often? I stir at mash in and then just before lauter.

How long? One hour? One hour normally. Thinking about 90 Mon for all the wheat.

How are you sparging? Batch sparge.

Are you checking pH? Yes. With a Ph meter.

Tap water or filtered or bottled/jug water? are you adjusting water? in the mash or sparges or both? Tap. I do not adjust.

Answers above.

 

[brewbama]

I sure would like to thank everyone for all the assistance ----- NOT! LOL

Regardless I did get better - but not full - efficiency.

 

[MattyIce]

How far off are ya? Maybe we can help each other lol. I do really well on beers up to about 1.060 then get less and less efficient above that.

 

[Weezy]

You see this all the time. Someone posts Im having x problem. People ask for details. OP responds saying they do everything perfect. What can anyone say? The only thing I can say is try stirring every 10-15 minutes to mix the wort and make sure the sugars are getting diluted. Try using a slightly thinner mash (more water).

 

[dtwhite]

I wouldn't worry about changing too many variables. If I'm reading your post correctly, the first time you made it and got bad efficiency, it was with the pre-crushed grains from NB, and since then you've used your own mill for a few brews and gotten good efficiency. I would just order it uncrushed, crush it yourself, and make sure to keep your volume measurements straight. Don't worry about grinding it into dust.

Also, just do what most all grain brewers do - keep some DME on hand in case something crazy happens and you need to bump it up.

 

[brewbama]

Thanks folks. I brewed it and got 3 pts higher than expected on my first run and 4 pts higher on my second run. But...I added rice hulls which sucked up a gallon of wort and wrecked my efficiency. LOL. Oh well I should have soaks them in warm water first. It made a 1.065 beer any way. Oh well.