amber gone wrong...

[etoews]

hey all:

got a question about an amber i brewed about a week ago and hope somebody here can help.

i do biab brewing and over my last few batches have been getting lousy efficiency. tried a number of things to correct the situation but still no dice. and yes, my grain is EXTREMELLY fine and i'm doing 90 minute mashes.

so on this last batch, i upped the grain bill 5% (an extra pound for this recipe; figured this might help get me to 70%) and lo and behold my og ended up being 1.092. way out of line for my amber... that comes out to 95% efficiency or something stupid. anyhow, it was supposed to be 1.068. and the only thing that i did differently than upping the grain bill was i got these grains from a different source (the previous grains all came from the lhbs).

so i pitched the yeast out of a 2L starter. the good news is that the gravity has dropped over 50 points in the last week, but i have a couple of questions:

-given that out of my last four batches, which were all ground exactly the same, is it possible that the lhbs just has grains that were un-fresh enough to cause this?
-am i going to need to add more yeast? and if so what type, how, and when? i know it's only been a week and it looks like the existing yeasties are doing a good job of chewing away at the wort, but i certainly didn't design the starter for a 1.092 beer... i would have stepped it up if i had known...

anyhow, thanks for any help.

cheers,

erik

 

[Calder]

It is unlikely the grain is the problem, (but it is possible). More likely you used too much mash water or your temperatures were off.

No you will not need to add any more yeast. Actually adding more yeast will do very little. It will not multiply due to the alcohol, so you would not be adding many cells. If the yeast are healthy, they should do the job for you.

 

[pkeeler]

-given that out of my last four batches, which were all ground exactly the same, is it possible that the lhbs just has grains that were un-fresh enough to cause this?

I doubt freshness is a problem. However, the new source probably crushed it better than your lhbs.

Pitching more yeast now will do nothing. You might want to consider dry hopping, as your beer is now a Double Amber with the hop rate of a regular Amber Ale. If you had the fermenter space, you could have added water after boiling and made 7-8 gal. of 1.068 beer. More beer is always good!

 

[etoews]

thanks for the advice guys. FWIW, i always hit my temps within a couple of degrees and the grinding was always done at the lhbs (including the last set of grains that i mail ordered. only order whole grains; like to do the grinding myself. and they are fine i will tell you; almost like powder).

and i would have loved to have added additional water to make more 1.068; unfortunately this was one of these brew days when i had broken another hydrometer and just said f*%k it; will check it in a couple of days when i get a new one.

so here i stand... and the question: i had a planned FG of 1.015. do you think that the yeast will get it down to that, and if not what would be a reasonabe expectation?

again, thanks.

erik

 

[pkeeler]

brew days when i had broken another hydrometer and just said f*%k it; will check it in a couple of days when i get a new one.

Been there. Time to switch to a refractometer. Haven't used or broke a hydrometer in months ;-)

 

[FromZwolle]

what is your sparge setup like? it sounds like you may have been getting channeling on previous batches.

also 95% efficiency is very hard to get. how did you get that number? (refractometer or hydrometer? at what temp were the samples?)

 

[etoews]

this is no sparge biab. samples are all around 65 F or so measured with a hydrometer.

 

[FromZwolle]

ah, that eliminates those possiblilities. it may just be that the grain was healthier/malted better than what you're used to getting.

 

[edb23]

have you been using the same water to grain ratio every time?

 

[etoews]

indeed. basically i've found that using this formula in the past has given me dead on results in terms of water for mash volume and then the following boil:

end volume+1.5 gal/hr. boiloff+(grain weight*.05)

so i've got to wonder if it could possibly be the grains at this store. i guess that i should have started worrying when i pointed at the giant bin of grain labeled 'pilsner' and asked "hey what is the origin of that barley" and was told "why do you ask it's all the same". doh!