Barleywine with Terrible Efficiency

[OldGilbert]

I brewed an all grain barleywine 3 days ago and the result was a staggeringly low OG of 1.07 compared to the target of 1.10. I typically get a decent efficiency of ~70% but this is more like 50% :O

I never managed to get the sparge temp up to 170 it was about 155 by the end of the sparge and I sparged at a rate of 1 gallon per 7 minutes.

How critical is it to be at 170 for the sarge and can I remove some of the mash water, heat it up, and then return it to the mash to achieve the target mash out temp? I would do this because the mash tun is already full to the brim.

Now that I am already fementing, can I try to fix the OG by boiling a gallon of water with a large amount of LME and adding it to the primary once it is cool? Or just accept my imperial Pale Ale as it is?

 

[dmtaylor]

This is extremely common with strong beers like barleywine to see efficiency fall to 50%. Happens to the best of us. The only way to avoid this is to plan for a very long boil of 2 hours or more and sparge a lot more to get more sugars out of the huge grist.

Mashout temperature of 170 F is not critical at all, ESPECIALLY for barleywine. Skip it and don't worry about skipping it.

Since you did miss by quite a bit, yes, I would advise boiling up a bit more extract, cool and add it in there. Give yourself the barleywine that you intended!

Cheers, and better skill next time!

 

[OldGilbert]

This is extremely common with strong beers like barleywine to see efficiency fall to 50%. Happens to the best of us. The only way to avoid this is to plan for a very long boil of 2 hours or more and sparge a lot more to get more sugars out of the huge grist.

Mashout temperature of 170 F is not critical at all, ESPECIALLY for barleywine. Skip it and don't worry about skipping it.

Since you did miss by quite a bit, yes, I would advise boiling up a bit more extract, cool and add it in there. Give yourself the barleywine that you intended!

Cheers, and better skill next time!

Fantastic info thanks!

 

[Hwk-I-St8]

@dmtaylor is right and his options are spot on. I brewed a Bourbon Count Stout clone last winter and was able to hit 70% brewhouse efficiency by doing a two step batch sparge and collecting a little over 9 gallons pre-boil. I boiled for 3 hours and ended up with about 5.25 gallons in the fermenter (really high boil off as I was in the garage in January in Iowa, it was about 15 degrees out). Final gravity was 1.128. For reference, that efficiency was only two percentage points less than my usual BH efficiency for a 1.065 beer.

The results were fantastic and I'd definitely go that route in the future. But if you fall short and it's too late to do that, some DME will solve the problem easily. I keep some on hand all the time for that and for starters.

 

[kevin58]

Big grainbills often result in lower efficiency. I always keep some DME on hand to boost it if need be.

 

[gnef]

This is one reason I built my large 120 Qt mash tun, and put in a manifold. When I first used it with a braid, it took forever to lauter.

I also had abysmal efficiency with the big beers, especially in the regular 60 Qt mash tun that I use.

I recently decided it isn't worth the time to boil down as much as I would need with a larger volume, so I typically plan for low efficiency, and just use a tremendous amount of grain and do a no sparge, and then boil a reasonable amount of time for me. The highest I've hit was 1.154, but that was nearly 45# of grain for 5 gallons of barleywine, and that was still with a lengthy boil.

 

[snowtiger1987]

You mentioned that your mash tun was full to the brim. Depending in your dimensions (i.e. mash height greater than mash width) your efficiency will suffer. Even with my 20 gallon Blichman super efficient mash tun and false bottom (I get 90-95% efficiency on most beers) I only get about 85% on really big beers.